


This Old Dog

by reddielosers



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Pennywise (IT), Angst with a Happy Ending, Childhood Trauma, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind AU, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Post-Break Up, reverse slow burn?, yo this is a lot youre signing up for a lot, youll understand later
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-04
Updated: 2019-04-08
Packaged: 2019-05-02 01:10:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 49,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14533419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reddielosers/pseuds/reddielosers
Summary: After going through a painful break up, musician and free spirit Richie Tozier decides to go through a procedure that completely erases all memory of his ex-lover. Discovering what Richie has done, shy and unstable artist Eddie Kaspbrak cannot cope and gets the same procedure done. Slowly, Eddie forgets the man that he loved.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [allie's butt](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=allie%27s+butt).



> Hi all!  
> This is my first IT fanfic and I am really nervous and excited to finally put it out there!  
> I already have half of this fic finished, so I am planning on updating the next chapter every Thursday (probably)!  
> The rating may be changed to Mature or Explicit down the road, depending on where the story takes me.
> 
> This story borrows HEAVILY from both Eternal Sunshine and IT films. It is also based loosely on the IT miniseries and book.  
> I wanted to try my best to stay true to the IT characters AND the ES movie, while also being able to be an enjoyable stand alone to people who haven’t watched the ESOTSM movie.  
> Okay wow big introduction, but thank you for reading and please leave a comment if ya feel like it!  
> \- Chloe
> 
> -
> 
> Richie's song - https://vimeo.com/38473850

  
  
“ _ Old Dog _ typically has a negative connotation, referring to someone who is unwilling to change. However it is used in this depiction in a positive way, implying that his inability to change is actually a good thing. His love for this person will never lessen, as his feelings will always stay the same.”

* * *

 

Grey light filters through a dusty room. Clouds hang bloated and looming outside of the window. Eddie Kaspbrak slowly opens his eyes, letting them adjust, blinking away the loose hair that had fallen on to his face. One by one, each of his senses come to life after a night of deep and stiff sleep. His eyes feel dry and irritated, like they do after a full night of crying. Had he cried? Eddie ponders for a moment, letting his mind catch up with his body’s memories. He doesn’t recall.

The more alive his sensations become after waking, a bleak feeling settles like a stone in his stomach. While mornings typically promise the beginning of a new day, this one has the air of finality. Of an ending. Like a distinct and cutting period after a loaded sentence. 

The sounds of a faint alarm slowly began to grow in Eddie’s eardrums. He sits up in his bed and one of his hands instinctively clicks a button on his clock. Everything in his studio apartment is so familiar... yet so alien. He looks around the room in a sudden frenzy, auburn eyes darting from place to place. His walls feel as though they are gawking back at him, the lack of posters or decoration leaving them stark and open like a wide eyed predator. 

Everything is perfectly in its place. Records stacked on their shelves, dishes washed next to the sink, even bookmarks left where he stopped in his novels. Some of his oil paintings litter the floor, though none are hanging up. Why did it feel like something was so distinctly absent and off? The ugly grey paint covering his apartment looked aged, withered and peeling from the test of time. He doesn’t remember when they started doing that.

As he gets more worked up over the unfamiliarity of his surroundings, Eddie’s chest suddenly begins constricting in a painful and smothering way. His hands grasp at the front of his shirt, and wonders if this could be a panic attack. His breathing becomes short as he gasps for air. 

Eddie immediately turns and opens his side table drawer, looking for his savior. Pushing paintbrushes and pencils aside, he pads at the bottom of the drawer. It is usually just within reach, but he doesn’t find it in its usual resting place. He gets out of bed, bare feet padding across the hardwood floor. It’s not on the coffee table, or in his suitcase. Feeling faint, Eddie hurries to the bathroom, his gasps following him down the hall.

Swiftly opening the bathroom mirror, his eyes finally settle on what he has been looking for. On the top shelf and tucked behind two spare deodorants is his inhaler. He grabs it, knocking a few of the toiletries off, and presses the mouth of the inspirator to his lips. He feels immediate relief, lungs immediately relenting and letting him take in his first full breath of air. Luckily, just the act of using his inhaler immediately calmed him. Because curiously, when he had tried to inhale the medicine, none had been released. He looked down at the device and noticed it caked in dust. 

Scrunching his face in disgust, he threw the inhaler into the wastebasket, closed the mirror, and began washing his hands. He stared back at his own face as warm water came spewing out of the faucet. He didn’t know if it was because of the grey light and blue walls, but he looked terrible. His young face was unusually pale for his tan skin, with purple shadows housed under his eyes. His cheeks looked almost gaunt. His dark hair looked flat and lifeless. He doesn’t know why he had let himself go these past few weeks, stopped taking proper care of himself. Maybe he simply just lost the will to. 

 

_“I look like a Tim Burton character,"_  he humorlessly thought.

 

After the rough start to his morning, Eddie slowly got into his morning routine. Styled his hair, brushed his teeth, and grabbed an apple on his way out the door. His blue button up and slacks did nothing to protect him from the frozen air that hit face and he immediately felt his cheeks and ears heat up from the cold. 

The moment his car came into view, he stopped dead in his tracks. His small 2000 Honda Civic looked seemingly crushed from the driver’s side door all the way back. Running up to the white car he threw both of his hands into his hair in exasperation. He glanced around frantically and once he realized he wasn’t going to figure out who the culprit was to the hit and run, he only sighed. 

Throwing his briefcase into the passenger seat, Eddie didn’t have to pray long before his vehicle sprang to life with a short screech from his engine belt. 

Suburban houses passed by his window, landscaped lawns and two story houses slowly turning into the industrial scape of the city. He didn’t turn on the radio. There were too many thoughts in his mind. The farther away from his home, the better he felt. Despite how open and empty it was, the feeling of suffocation was hard to ignore. 

Eddie wondered to himself when he turned into such a minimalist. He guesses he had just been bred that way. Images of his childhood home panned through his head like a broken slideshow projector. Couches covered in plastic, the light smell of chemicals ever present in the walls. 

While he painted nearly every day, none had made his mother proud enough to display. Though he drew any image that flowed through his mind, none of the penciled creations were allowed to see the light of day. The walls in his childhood home remained as barren as the ones in his apartment. 

Once his mother’s invasive and pink face abruptly came into his mind, he had to physically shake his head to rid the image. The ghost of Sonia Kaspbrak had been following him around long before she had actually passed. 

It was only once he reached the boarding platform of his train, all cramped and huddled with other civilians, he finally found that the stone in his belly had dissipated. He stood next to a few dozen others, all sporting the same button up, slacks, and tie. Everyone grasped at their briefcase or work bag, trying their best not to seem too afflicted by the cold. 

Eddie had a small and sad revelation when he realized that he blended right in with the pack. Another faceless being waiting for their ride to work, like they had done hundreds of times before. He wanted to crawl out of his skin. His sense of individuality felt frayed and depleted. Glancing around, Eddie slowly stepped away from the crowd, turning his back and strutting away. 

Something else plagued his body, though, as a buzzing in his chest started again. He began to think he was having another panic attack, except this time he was breathing just fine. His bones felt like they were vibrating against each other, his heartbeats picking up at an alarming rate. Adrenaline suddenly bursts through his system. He had the sudden urge to just… run. 

Run from the herd of sheep waiting in their suits and ties. Run from the cubicle waiting for him at work. There was an ache in his limbs that begged him to just turn and  _leave._

_What is happening to me?_ He could see his bus coming closer in the distance, slowly pulling itself over the hill that led to the train stop. Glancing at his watch, he silently made a strange and impulsive decision. 

He ran. Mindlessly following the invisible tether that was pulling his body forward.

His briefcase was swaying haphazardly next to him as he sprinted through several small crowds, two flights of stairs, and squeezed through one final door. When he was safely inside a mystery train he took a moment to gather himself. Standing there panting, he tried his best not to dry heave from the sudden exertion. Eddie flopped into the seat closest to him. He looked around, finding himself alone, and finally melted into the train seats.

 

 

It was the sound of a loud train horn that startled Eddie awake and out of his seat. His eyes flew open and he stood straight up as he soaked in his surroundings. The vehicle's doors opened and he glanced up at the electric sign above him to find out where it is he took himself.

**CITY CENTER - PORTLAND, MAINE**

Brain fuzzy and legs moving on their own accord, Eddie shook his head to ground himself. Walking out of the station he was greeted with old buildings, all structured close together and connected. Lamp posts dimly lit the dark early morning streets. 

He feels as though he hadn’t been to Portland for at least a year. Maybe even two. His mind was full of foggy memories and unclear trips that he must have taken. The last thing he can truly recall is a few years ago when Mike and Stan had taken him here as a graduation gift. Even then, the recollection is hazy at best.

He pushes quarters into a payphone and feigns a weak attempt at being sick as he calls into work. He finds himself actually having fun, feeling a small thrill up his spine as the lie passes through his lips. He doesn’t know why he is lying. Then again, he doesn’t even know what compelled him to come out here in the first place. 

_Just a change. To feel something._ He tries to reason with himself but finds that his logic is coming up weak. Maybe it really was just to chase that exciting buzzing in his chest.

He quickly finds a coffee stand and clings to the warmth of his paper cup. He tries to hunt down some sort of city center directory but there isn’t one. Mindlessly, he crosses the street and gets himself lost. _On purpose_ _._ Eddie smiles at his own compulsivity. 

_When was the last time I did something like this??_ he nearly squealed in his head. He walks through a large park, passing by some extravagant water fountains. Even in the early hours of the afternoon, couples have congregated on the park benches and joggers have begun their daily runs. He eventually finds an empty spot on a cement bench underneath an old tree. 

He people watches for a few minutes, adjusting to the environment around him, when someone catches his eye. Across the park, yards and yards away, he sees a tall figure. The man is wearing a neon orange windbreaker and is brightly contrasted against the bushes behind him. It makes him pop against the park’s lighthearted scene, sticking out to Eddie like a sore thumb. Curiosity peaked his interest, but for just a split second. While he tried to keep his focus on the man’s face, he could never quite make out his eyes. Eventually, the thin being walked back out of sight, releasing Eddie from his trance. 

For awhile, as Eddie doodles on a piece of paper from his briefcase and takes small sips of his coffee, thoughts flow freely through his mind. He struggles to reflect on the last few years of his life. He can’t recall any parties he went to, or any meetups with Mike or Stanley. All that fills his melancholic reverie are days at work and random meals he had eaten. All by himself. 

_Where did all the time go? What have I been doing?_ Eddie stresses. And why had the loneliness only hit him today? He couldn’t seem to come up with any answers. 

Ready to begin journeying again, he gets back on his feet and looks down at the sketch of a orange silhouette he had mindlessly created.

 

* * *

 

 

After a trip to the rock covered beach, another coffee run, and a bookstore, Eddie finds himself across the street from a pub. An orange and yellow neon sign glows brightly against the overcast sky reading _The Quarry._

He steps inside the dimly lit building and walks up to the bar. Once he receives his drink (a vodka soda), he quickly slides into one of the corner booths. There is a small stage on the other side of the room, as well as an open floor. Chairs are scattered haphazardly around the empty space, and one singular red light blooms on the stage. 

Eddie stares down at his fizzing drink, and wonders about his past relationships. He thinks about Wesley, a broad shouldered man who he considered to be hopelessly out of his league. Wes had blonde hair, dark eyes, and a face that was sculpted by Michelangelo. Soft spoken, smart… and boring. 

_But nice,_ Eddie relents. _He was nice._

He and Wes had almost moved in together at one point. Which wasn’t a great idea, considering they had only known each other for a few months. They were moving fast, but not fast enough for Eddie. He had thought Wes was going to slip out of his fingers at any second, and that would have been his one and only chance at happiness. If felt so do or die back then… And now… Eddie can’t even remember what made them part. 

Some soft laughter from out of sight jars Eddie out of his thoughts. Taking a quick swig of his drink, he grabs his jacket and prepares to slip back out of his seat. And then it happens.

Stepping out from behind a thin velvet curtain is the faceless dark figure. He steps into the red of the light on stage, a bright entity radiating a warm aura across the dark bar. 

The orange jacket he once wore was gone and now revealed a thin man with a hefty weight of thick black curls atop his head. Dark jeans are tight over long legs and the man’s chest was layered with a thin t-shirt reading the band name _Nirvana_  and an obnoxiously colored hawaiian shirt. A guitar is gripped lazily in his hand.

Eddie scans the man up and down several times. After seeing nothing but the grey wash of middle class workers in his hometown, the brightly colored stranger was like a sun in the dark. Finally, his eyes fall on the stranger’s face. 

Pale skin and high cheekbones were contrasted starkly by a wide and squared jaw. The man’s features were so masculine and yet still managed to bring a feeling of feminine and soft energy. His nose was thin and misplaced on his face when compared to his strong eyebrows. After feeling the weight of someone looking at him, the young man finally glanced over at Eddie. 

Eddie’s chocolate brown eyes met with an engulfing black pair of almond shaped ones. They were so intense and all encompassing, Eddie felt like he was being eaten and swallowed whole. The man turned towards him entirely, keeping his eye contact strong and deliberate. Eddie could feel his heartbeat in his ears from being caught staring and made an effort to retract his gaze.

Instead, a new feeling emerged, hot and quick. Akin to the timelapse of a flower speeding through its spring bloom. Beginning as something docile and waiting, now rapidly in motion and alive. A rise and fall and then a rise again. Colors slowly filtered into his vision, and he felt the Tim Burton-ness of his day being blown away like dust. 

The man’s stoic face finally faltered, his lips falling into a wide and toothy grin, like porcelain cracking open from age. Beautiful and sad. Eddie felt his heart fall into the pit of his stomach. He was entranced once again, just like at the park. Only this time, the spell had taken over the other man as well. 

Without breaking eye contact, the inquisitive stranger pulled a short stool towards the microphone propped on stage. He gave a two-finger salute to Eddie in a friendly hello. But Eddie couldn’t move, didn’t think he had even blinked since the other man had reappeared. He didn’t trust his voice either, swallowing dryly. 

“My name is Richie, nice to meet you.” The man laughed into the microphone softly. 

_Richie._ Eddie echoes. 

“I planned on playing something new of mine. I hope you don’t mind.” His voice was deep and had a smoker’s rough timbre. Before Eddie could attempt a reply, Richie winked (making Eddie’s stomach flip) and started strumming his guitar for his one man audience.

With strong and powerful strokes against the strings, Richie’s face immediately tensed into one of concentration. So much energy seeped out of the skinny man, it was as if he was a planet complete with its own gravitational pull. Eddie could tell he had already forgotten anyone else was in the room. Softly, he started to sing.

_This is our last goodbye._

_Hate to see the love between us die._

The music was achingly beautiful, and his voice was full of passion. Richie had closed his eyes, putting all of his focus into the intensity of the words flowing out of his mouth. He looked almost pained.

_ But it’s over. _

_ Just hear this, then I’ll go. _

_ You gave me more to live for, _

_ More than you’ll ever know. _

As the song continues on, Eddie gets this strange nagging in his brain. A memory is trying to arise, bubbling from deep within him. A familiarity that is supposed to be there but isn’t. He can’t place the sensation. It happens again and again, but there is just misfire after misfire. A deja vu with no recollection. Nothing. 

The only thing he can seem to focus on clearly is... Richie. He feels like the answer to a question Eddie didn’t ask. All his searching throughout the city, and he finally found his destination. What he was looking for. 

_ This is our last embrace, _

_ Must I dream and always see your face? _

_ Why can’t we overcome this wall? _

As Eddie comes to this cessation, Richie finally opens his eyes and looks back at him. 

_Baby, maybe it's just because_

_I don't know you at all._

The tempo changes in the song soon after and Richie sing-yells into the microphone.

_ Kiss me, please kiss me,  _

_ Kiss me out of desire please, not consolation! _

As he reaches higher and higher notes, his voice cracks a few times. This makes the musician laugh, all past concentration replaced with playfulness and ease.

_ Did you say, "No, this can't happen to me" _

_ Was there a voice unkind in the back of your mind... _

_ Saying maybe, _

_ You didn't know him at all. _

A new layer of Richie is revealed as he wraps up the verse with some silly vocal runs. He strums the guitar frantically, leaning back as he ends the song. There is a charm and goofiness that only seems to pull Eddie further in. 

Richie gleefully hops off stage, strutting over to him. His grin is nearly contagious. Eddie finally finds the will to compose himself, sitting up straight. He clears his throat and promptly finishes his drink before Eddie finally looks him in the eye.

“Hi, cutie pie. Impressed?” Richie smirks down at him in his seat. 

Eddie is slightly taken back. He didn’t expect cheekiness from such a pretty creature.

“Oh, I see. You’re speechless. It’s okay, happens to the best of us.” Richie says impetuously, mischief dancing in his eyes. Scrunching his face up, Eddie stands. 

“Yeah, you put on quite the show.” he says flatly, words coming out harsher than he intended. Richie just barks a laugh. 

“I know, I know, I’m a little choppy. What I lack in pitch I try to make up for in stage presence.” Richie pops out a lazy jazz hand, saying the last half of his sentence sarcastically. His grin never falters.

This makes Eddie crack a small smile. He sort of likes that Richie only talks himself up so he can knock himself back down. All for the sake of a laugh. 

“My names Eddie.” He says, his mouth moving without his permission. 

“Eddie, huh? Well, Eddie, that has to be one of the most beautiful names I have _ever_   heard.” Richie leans forward as he says it.

_What is he playing at?_

While rolling his eyes Eddie says, “Yeah, just don’t make any jokes about it. I hate that.” He fires a serious look as his eyebrows raise. 

“Wouldn’t dream of it, Eds.” Richie replies, finishing his sentence with a shameless wink. Just before Eddie can protest about the nickname, Richie is gesturing around the small bar, changing the subject.

“So, what brings you to my VIP only jam session?” His confidence, while delivered as a joke, is captivating.

Ignoring his cockiness, Eddie answers honestly. “I don’t know. I’m from Cumberland and I just… wandered in here. I don’t really know what I’m doing. Besides being harassed by a stranger.” He says pointedly.

He smiles when Richie laughs again, finding humor in the smallest of Eddie’s inflections.

“Well, Eddie…” Richie leans in, holding his hand out, waiting for him to help fill in the blank.

“Kaspbrak.”

Richie smiles, loving how Eddie just plays along. “Well, Eddie Kaspbrak, I don’t know about you, but after looking at something as delicious as yourself, I’m getting pretty hungry.”

Eddie bites his bottom lip, hiding how excited he gets by Richie’s daring advances. He couldn’t help but fall for Richie’s flirtations. Not that he was going to let Richie know that.

_ This guy is a real piece of work. _

After a beat, Richie says earnestly, “We don’t have to stay strangers. Do you want to go grab a bite?” There is a vulnerable tone that strikes a chord with Eddie. Richie licks his lip when he glances down at Eddie’s mouth. “Please?”

It sent a warm shiver down Eddie’s spine. Richie was so close that Eddie could smell the hint of cigarette smoke wafting off of him. He couldn’t believe he was being not only flirted with, but asked out to eat. While he knew that others didn’t find him ugly, it was still hard for him to accept.

_ Does he really think I'm that attractive? _

Eddie can’t really believe himself when he says, “Uh, yeah… Um, sure.” A shy smile grows across his face and Richie throws that same toothy grin right back at him.

Placing a hand on Eddie’s shoulder, Richie motions towards the door.

 

“After you, my love.”

 

 

 


	2. Lunac Inc

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi again! Welcome to chapter 2!  
> I had no idea not only how emotionally attached you can get to a chapter, but also how emotionally drained it can make you. This chapter had me on my ass for days tbh
> 
> I hope you like it as we dig deeper into the meat of the story. Pls enjoy
> 
> \--
> 
> Eddie's song: This Old Dog - Mac DeMarco

The night has the wet streets of a long road cloaked in complete blackness. The only things illuminating the depressing scene are street lamps every few blocks. A car passes by them much faster than the speed limit permits. Rain splatters violent and quick onto the windshield, being constantly wiped away by a furious windshield wiper. 

Eddie’s face is shrouded in darkness, only being lit every few seconds by the passing lights. The shadows of raindrops on the window cover his face. A wash of tears spill over his cheeks, hot and heavy. He feels a tight knot in his throat as he openly weeps, but the music blaring through his car’s speaker drowns out any wail that he emits. His hands shake uncontrollably, making him grip the steering wheel tighter in order to steady them. The song encompasses all noise, swallowing Eddie’s thoughts. 

_ As long as I live all you need to know is, _

_ This old dog ain’t about to forget. _

_ All we’ve had, and all that’s next. _

_ As long as my heart’s beating in my chest, _

_ This old dog ain’t about to- _

Eddie lets out one final, helpless yell at the roof of the car. He ejects the mixtape immediately, throwing it out the window. The cassette ricochets off the cement into a gutter. It’s label reads “To Spaghetti”.

Pulling up into a suburban neighborhood, Eddie parks next to a small one story home. He yanks the keys out of the ignition, and just sits there. After trying his best to even his breathing, he feels frustration creep into his feelings of sadness. 

He hits his fist on the dashboard, anger taking hold. Inhaling deeply, he makes another attempt to compose himself. After wiping his snot away with his sleeves, he rubbed his cheeks until they felt dry and raw. He was so upset he didn’t even register how unhygienic using his shirt as a tissue really was. Not caring to look at himself in the mirror, Eddie slides out of his car and slams it shut.

As he knocks lightly on the door, Eddie can already feel his aggression withering. He wipes his feet on the welcome mat, sniffling lightly when the door swings open. 

Stanley Uris appears before him, still dressed in his day clothes despite the late hour. It is evident that he has been waiting for him to show up. He is a petite man, but his height is about two heads taller than Eddie. Dirty blonde hair falls just above his eyes, and his curls are tight and voluminous. His eyes are sad, but his lips remain in a straight line, trying their best not to betray his emotions. 

“Eddie…” Stan sighs. Before he can finish his sentence, his husband Mike runs up behind him. Shoving Stan aside, the more muscular gentleman, clad in jeans and a t-shirt, immediately scoops Eddie up into a tight embrace. 

“Come inside, come inside. We made coffee. Let’s get you some.” Mike pulls him into the house, and Eddie just nods dumbly, walking wherever he is led.

Mike and Stan end up being the only ones drinking coffee, sitting in their sofa chairs while they watch Eddie pace around the living room. 

“Our anniversary is two god damn days away! I want it resolved. I’m willing to be the one to resolve it!” Eddie finally bursts, heated anger finally coming forth again. “He hasn’t talked to me in days. So, I try to call him…” Eddie laughs humorlessly, “And he’s changed his number!” 

Mike and Stan share a look that Eddie can’t decipher. He presses on anyway.

“I went into his work this morning to apologise. I thought, hey, maybe we can go out and recreate our first date. Remind us what we mean to each other. And he…” Eddie feels his throat wanting to close up.

“What did he do?” Mike asks softly. 

“He just looked right through me. Like he didn’t even know who I am.” Eddie falls silent again, the painful memory of this morning playing in his head.

_ Richie’s eyes looked blankly back at him.  _

_ “Need me to find you something, Sir?”  _

_ Eddie had just blinked. A smile of disbelief played weakly on his lips.  _

_ “W-what?” _

_ Someone called Richie’s name.  _

_ “Okay, well let me know if there is anything I can help you with.” Richie walks away, not looking back at Eddie as he leaves. _

“I felt so embarrassed. Humiliated. His coworkers just stared at us. They obviously knew something was wrong. He just… completely ignored me. Like I was a stranger.” Eddie walks over to the staircase in front of his friends, sitting down. He buries his head into his hands.

“Why would he do that to me?” He asks quietly, letting soft tears trail down his face. 

After a few moments of silence, Mike finally speaks up. 

“You know how Richie is, Eddie. He was probably just being purposefully… petty. You know you don’t have to play his little games. Maybe you should take this as a sign to make a clean break. Right, Stan?” 

“I should go to his house.” Eddie says.

Stan interjects quickly. “No, no! You don’t want to do that, no.”

Eddie just nods, only half listening. “Yeah, maybe, maybe I shouldn’t act so desperate.”

Stan nods quickly back at him, trying his best to seem reassuring. Silence fills the room once again.

“Hey… Anybody want to watch a bird documentary?” Stan jokes weakly. 

Mike stands up, picking his empty coffee mug off the cable. 

“God, Stan, give it a rest.” Mike sighs.

Stan looks back down at his lap, and then stares over at Eddie. Eddie is too busy rubbing his eyes and temples, stress fogging his mind. Mike walks into the room with a fresh cup as Stan makes a his decision.

“You know what… No, no. Eddie, listen,” Stan quickly opens up a side table next to the couch, pulling out a thin white letter. Eddie looks up at him as he tries to pass him the piece of mail. Completely confused, Eddie reaches his hand out.

Until Mike walks over, slamming his cup on the coffee table. 

“What are you doing? Stan, don’t do that. Stan, stop it!” He tries to grab the piece of mail, but Stan just deflects him. Eddie stares at both of them, eyes empty of comprehension.

“No, Eddie is a grown man, he deserves to know. You can’t keep protecting him like you did in school! We can’t just pretend he’s Mama Mikey’s kid anymore.” 

Mike just stares in disbelief, shaking his head. He silently glares at Stan as he picks up his coffee cup, moving past Eddie up the stairs. “Have fun with your night on the couch!” He yells as he closes their bedroom door.

Stan smiles apologetically at Eddie. “We’ve had a hard day.  _ He’s _ had a hard day. It’ll be okay.” he says, mostly to himself. 

Eddie hasn’t taken his eyes off the letter since is appeared, staring at it as if it was an alien.

“What is that?”

Stan just holds it up to him again. “Here.”

Eddie unfolds it quickly, looking at the small text.

  
  


“Dear Mr. and Mr. Uris,

**Richard Tozier** has had  **Edward Kaspbrak** erased from his memory. 

Please never mention their relationship to Mr. Tozier again.

Thank you.”

-Lunac Inc.

 

“What is this.” Eddie says hollowly. A ringing starts piercingly loud in his ears. His blood runs cold. He reads the words over and over but his brain can’t register what he is seeing. 

“What is this?!” He shouts, panicked eyes bugging out at Stan. Eddie’s confusion clouds his other senses and he can’t think straight. 

Stan just presses his fingers to the bridge of his nose. “I don’t know! It’s just this place… that does a thing…” 

“ _ Richard Tozier has had Edward Kaspbrak erased from his memory. _ ” Eddie reads hoarsely. It hurts him to just say it out loud. “Is this some kind of joke?” 

Stan just stares at him.

“Why are you fucking with me?!” Eddie’s voice just grows louder, pointing a sharp finger into Stan’s chest accusingly. 

Stan grabs Eddie’s hand lightly and stands up. He pulls Eddie into his chest and caresses his head. Placing his lips to the top of Eddie’s hair, he whispers lightly.

“I’m so sorry, Eddie. I’m so sorry.” Anger still coursing through his body, Eddie feels his hot tears soak into Stan’s shirt. He finally lets a small sob slip, muffled by Stan’s embrace.

“Why would he do this to me?” Eddie cries. Stan remains still, rubbing soft circles into Eddie’s back. “Why would he do this to me?”

Stan doesn’t know.

 

* * *

 

Eddie walks up to a white building with a white sign and black block letters. 

**LUNAC INCORPORATED**

He just stands and stares. His mind has been blank with disbelief since he left Mike and Stan’s house late last night. Walking on autopilot, Eddie pulls open the front door and rushes inside. 

The interior of the building replicates the outside. White walls, white couches, and white tile floors. Wandering further, Eddie comes face to face with the receptionist. She has short cropped hair as red as a grapefruit, shocking him with the only hint of true color within the room. She wears a white lab coat with a large name tag that says BEVERLY. Her blue eyes bore into his and she smiles sweetly at him.

“Can I help you, Sir?”

“Yes. I need to speak with Dr. Denbrough.” Eddie says urgently.

“Okay, do you have an appointment?” She looks at him expectantly. 

“No. I just need to speak with him, I need to know what is going on, I have no idea what is happening.” Eddie says, trying to keep his voice down as his panic rises.

Beverly looks at him sympathetically, her smile staying steady on her face. “I need you to fill this out then,” she says as she hands him a clipboard.

“No, I don’t want to make an appointment, I-” 

“You still need to fill it out, sir.” She interrupts him quietly. She had an aura of understanding, everything she did was gentle and calculated. It made Eddie feel slightly more at ease. Only slightly.

Silently walking to one of the white couches, Eddie sees a few people waiting quietly in the back of the front room. He fills out the paperwork and returns in quickly. It isn’t long until everyone is taken care of, leaving Eddie to wait alone. His mind remains barren like an empty canvas. He doesn’t know what to think. He doesn’t know how to feel.

He couldn’t help but imagine Richie in this very same room, excited and willing to get rid of Eddie for good. This day dream version of Richie had an evil smile on his face, his usual look of mischief distorted into something ugly and sinister. This image of Richie grips Eddie in a tight hold of insecurity and self hatred. This sends Eddie into an even deeper tailspin, glancing around the room, desperate for any kind of distraction.

“Mr. Kaspbrak?” calls a mature male voice. Eddie lifts his head to see a handsome and tall man standing behind Beverly. 

Dr. Bill Denbrough. He has light brown hair, cropped short. His blue eyes looked grey in the fluorescent light. His pale face and eye bags are the only things revealing his true, older age. 

He also sports a white lab coat and a smile, but he doesn’t hold the same hospitable sincereness as Beverly. He waves Eddie to follow him as he squeezes Beverly’s shoulder in thanks. She smiles shyly at him, before returning to her phone call at the front desk. 

Eddie follows him down the hallway. Bill opens a door to the right, peeking his head inside. 

“Ben, I’m going to be with Mr. Kaspbrak for a few moments. I won’t be taking any calls, so please answer if I receive any.” 

A broad shouldered man with wide cheeks says he understands, and nods politely at Eddie as Bill closes the door once more. 

“Alright, here we are. Please, take a seat.” the doctor says as they enter his office. He sits across from Eddie behind a large brown desk. 

“I understand that you have a few questions about what we do here. To put it briefly, we provide a service for those who have a person, place, or thing that they want to forget. If you wish to be unburdened by your memories, we provide that possibility.” Dr. Denbrough says his short monologue bluntly, like he had recited it a hundred times before. 

Beverly walks in to set a few papers on to Bill’s desk. Eddie’s knee bounces as he looks down at his folded hands. Bill picks up the documents he just received, staring down at the letter that Eddie returned in with his paperwork. 

“The Uris residence shouldn’t have given you this. You shouldn’t have seen this. I apologize.” Bill says sincerely. 

“This isn’t real.” he whispers.

“I assure you it is.” Bill promises.

“It is.” Beverley says. Eddie catches her looking at him. She just nods before exiting the room again. 

“There’s no such thing as this.” Eddie says again, more stern.

Bill looks at him for a moment. Thoughtfully considering what to say next. 

“Listen, Mr Kaspbrak. Our files are confidential, so there is nothing I can show you to prove it. But, please trust me when I say that Mr... Tozier was very unhappy. And wanted to just move on. We provide that possibility.”

 

* * *

“He just kept saying “We provide that possibility.” What the fuck is that? Like it’s that simple?! I mean… What did I do to deserve this? I was the nicest guy he ever went out with!” Eddie says, feeling completely hopeless. 

He had rushed back over to the Uris home as soon as he managed to escape that white walled hell. The moment Dr. Denbrough revealed that none of this was actually a dream like Eddie had hoped, it was as if all of the thoughts he was running from suddenly came crashing back. It felt like a ferocious ocean of pain and betrayal, slamming into him over and over. Bill’s words swirled in his head, saying that same monologue on repeat.

 

Eddie sits on the kitchen counter, his small feet hanging above the ground. Mike is leaning on Stan’s shoulder while the other man chops vegetables for dinner. He gives Eddie a soft smile of understanding, before kissing the blonde man’s head and walking over to him.

He puts his hands on both of Eddie’s thighs and squeezes. It was evident Mike didn’t know what to say, relying on physical affection to calm Eddie down. Of course it didn’t take long for Stan to speak up.

“I don’t know, Eddie, you know Richie. He’s just like that. He’s… impulsive. I’m sure he erased you almost as some sort of practical joke.” Stan scoops up his finished choppings, and places them into a boiling pot.

“A joke.” Eddie repeats, his voice nearly failing him from the devastation. It is this moment that the over-stimulation of information finally hits home. 

He isn’t bombarded with thoughts of denial, no longer angry from the stinging feelings of betrayal. He is simply and purely heart broken. 

Left alone with the rotting corpse of his and Richie’s relationship. He didn’t know love had an expiration date. 

 

* * *

 

Eddie lays in his bed, staring at the peeling paint on the ceiling. He has been laying there for hours. He hasn’t eaten in days. His sleep has been restless and fleeting. He wonders how he is still alive. Slowly, he sits up. Photos of Richie are framed and scattered across his walls. A pain in his chest blooms that is so seering he physically jolts. 

After days of suffering and confusion, Eddie decides he must either delete Richie or face certain death. Soon, he realizes it would of been much less painful if he chose the latter.

Eddie finally gets out of bed and grabs a few large garbage bags. He stares down at them in his hands, Dr. Denbrough’s words echoing inside of his head.

_ The first step you need to take in order to get the procedure is… go home… and collect every item you have that is associated with Richard. Anything… Everything. _

Eddie is suddenly in a frenzy, immediately grabbing Richie’s pillow off of his side of the bed and stuffing it within the bag.

_ We are going to use these items to create a map of memories within your brain. This will help us when it comes time to do the procedure. We’ll need any photos you took… _

He pulls frames right off of their nails, ripping photo booth prints off of his fridge. A photo of them sharing a kiss. One of Richie licking his face. He comes across an old photo, when they first got together, with him, Richie, Stan and Mike all drunk after one of Richie’s shows. 

He quickly turns around, staring at a large canvas covered by a whirlwind of abstraction and color. A faint memory of him and Richie finger painting with thick oil paint after a night of making love washes through his mind. Simple. Childish. Sweet. 

He violently yanks it off the wall.

_ Clothes… _

He collects the small hoard of band t-shirts that he had stolen from Richie over the years. A pair of Richie’s shoes. Lipstick and eyeshadows Richie left behind. Eddie pauses when he comes across his own Princess Leia costume. He stares down at it, white cloth billowing from his hands onto the floor. Tears begin to well up in his eyes, but before he lets the amazing memory of that night play out in his mind…

He throws that into the bag too. 

_ Gifts you gave each other, letters you wrote, things like that. You must purge your life entirely of him. _

A flurry of items passes through Eddie’s hands. He never lets his eyes settle on them long, avoiding any chance that a plague of memories will enter his mind. He takes down an Alice in Chains tapestry from above his bed, finds the vinyls within his collection that Richie had snuck in (Anthrax, The Cure, ABBA, The fucking Bee Gees.) He throws in Richie’s favorite movies like  _ The Shining _ ,  _ Night of the Living Dead, _ and random foreign films.

He finds a few empty cartons of cigarettes. Ever since they first started dating Eddie wasn’t afraid to express how much he disliked that Richie smoked. But over time the ful scent did nothing but comfort Eddie. Some nights, when Richie couldn't stay the night at his house, Eddie would find one of Richie's abandoned t-shirts and hold it close while he slept. The smell that would fill his head was a dizzying mixture of deodorant, cigarettes, and boy.

Holding up the empty box, Eddie opens it and gives it a small sniff. The aroma of pure  _ Richie _ fills his head. 

He bites down on his quivering lip. He tosses the cartons into the bag. 

He does a great job at first, clearing his home of any and all implications of Richie’s presence. But as he gets deeper into his possessions, it gets more painful to even look at the memorabilia.

First, he comes across the stupid fucking macaroni art that Richie had given him as a gag gift when they had first made their relationship official.

_ “Look, Spaghetti Man! Some spaghetti art for my spaghetti artist.” Richie teases. “I know I’m not an amazing visionary like you, but I thought you could use some actual decor in our loveshack. Honestly, for an art major, you’d think you would have some drapes or some shit like that, at least.” _

Next, he finds the box of letters he had began collecting the first time he and Richie had kissed. There had to have been hundreds, all in Richie’s chicken scratch. Each of them began with the same mushy greetings “Eds, Spaghetti Man, my love…” Endless amounts of jokes, poor doodles, and poetry cascaded out of the pages.

_ “So Eds, tonight when my band had opened for…” _

_ “Spaghetti, you will never guess who I bumped into today… your mom! And I have to say, she sucks dick just as good as when we…” _

_ “Stick with me here, I promise you haven’t heard this one before. So a Rabbi and a Priest walk into a bar…” _

As time went on, and they fell into an unrivaled love, Richie’s notes slowly grew from flirtatious wims and sweet nothings into passionate affirmations of love. His adoration for Eddie was intense and it showed.

_ “Just thinking about the amount of time I have to spend away from you… I really break my own heart…” _

_ “Of all the thousands of millions of billions of alternate universes, I can’t help but feel so lucky that I got to meet my Spaghetti when I did in this one...”  _

_ “I don’t think I will ever be able to pull you out of me again, Eds. You are woven into my tissues…” _

The pain that radiates within Eddie’s core feels like the most violent act a human can survive. He doesn’t know how he can still move. But he does. He gingerly places all of the letters into the bag. 

Before he continues, he lets himself cry. Hears the moans and sobs that fall out of his mouth, releasing the gut wrenching feeling of abandonment. He feels like a helpless child, and all he wants is his mom. But she is gone too. The size of his apartment feels as though it has doubled, leaving him feeling more isolated and alone than he thought was possible. 

Finally, a long while later, Eddie sits in front of his piles of sketch books. With a shaking hand, he begins the process of tearing each page out and stuffing them into the third and final garbage bag. 

Richie is seen at the park sitting on a bench, giving Eddie an award winning smile, cigarette hanging from his lips. Richie sitting upside down on the couch, flipping through television channels. Richie sleeping, face soft and juvenile. Richie showering, droplets of water clinging to his eyelashes. Richie on stage, covered in sweat. Richie naked in bed, tired from a night of blissful fucking. 

The only sound that emanates in the apartment now is the soft and muted ripping of paper.

 

* * *

The next morning, Eddie finds himself sitting again in the Lunac waiting room. At first, he feels self conscious of the amount of items he had to remove from his home and bring here. But as more people find their way inside, he notices the other items they had also brought. A woman beside him holds a large box full of dog toys and a small bed. There is a food bowl labeled “Buster.” Across from him is a man holding one baseball glove and trophy. 

He tries his best not to think too much about it. 

“Mr. Kaspbrak?” Beverly calls. “Are you ready for Dr. Denbrough?”

Eddie looks up and nods, gathering his bags. She looks at him for a moment, thoughtfully realizing the state that he is in. 

“How are you feeling today?” Eddie just shrugs, wishing he could shrink away from her gaze. “That’s okay. Soon this will all be in the past.” He shudders at the thought.

Finally starting his appointment, Eddie finds himself in Bill’s office. This time he sits on top of a medical bench as he gets his weight and vitals taken. 

“Now, Ben will be the one performing the erasure tonight in your home. You will take a strong dose of a sleeping aid tonight, around 8 o’clock. We do the procedure while you are asleep in your home. This way, when you wake up, you will find yourself safe in your own bed, not having to remember a single part of the process.” Bill says. While this all comes out as casual conversation, Eddie can’t help but shake from pure unsettling nerves.

“We start by erasing your most recent memories, and going backwards from there. There’s an emotional core to each of our memories. And once we eradicate these cores, the memories themselves will almost immediately wither and disappear. By the time you wake up in the morning, all will have been through the degradation process. Like a dream upon waking.”

“Is there any risk of brain damage?” Eddie asks quietly.

“Well… Technically, it is brain damage.” Bill admits. “But I would put it on par with a night of heavy drinking. Nothing you’ll miss.”

-

The final step of the process was intriguingly the most therapeutic for Eddie.

Bill hits a button on a tape recorder. Clearing his throat, he begins writing in on a document in front of him. 

“I am Dr. Bill Denbrough here with Edward Kaspbrak. We are starting the Erasure Procedure tonight at 8pm. I am taking a brief statement from Mr. Kaspbrak to put on file with his other confidential information. Now, Mr. Kaspbrak. Would you please introduce yourself and why you are here?”

Eddie folds his arms against his chest, insecure about the thought of being documented. Who would hear this later? Why did they need a statement?

“My name is Eddie Kaspbrak. I am here to erase…” He takes a deep breath. “I am here to erase Richie Tozier.”

“Good, good. Now, why don’t you tell me about, uh, Richie?” Bill says absentmindedly. 

“Well… I had just graduated from college. My best friends Mike and Stan surprised me by taking me out to Portland for a party. We ended up at a small pub, and there was a band playing and… In that band was, Richie. That is the night we first met.” Eddie continues his string of thoughts and memories, eventually delving into all of the things about Richie he couldn’t stand. All the times Richie had taken advantage of or hurt him. The wounds Richie left were deep. They tore through skin and muscle. Eddie’s bones felt exposed.

After nearly an hour of recording, Eddie is finally dismissed. He is reminded to take his prescribed sleeping aid at 7:30 pm. Then, technician Ben Hanscom would come into his home, start and finish the erasure process within 8 hours, and promptly leave. Upon waking… 

It will be as if Richie Tozier had never existed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi hi!  
> Shit is really hitting the fan huh. Not too fun amiright  
> But please hang in there! It will be worth it I promise.  
> Chapter three will be out Thursday night! 
> 
> (come hang out w me on tumblr! @reddieloserz )


	3. Eddie's Apartment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! The fun is about to begin, so buckle up kids  
> -
> 
> Richie's Song: First Love Never Die - Soko

Eddie flicks on the light to his bathroom. He stands in front of the mirror. The harsh fluorescence washes him out completely. His eyes are swollen from the last few days of weeping. His nose is pink. 

He has been wondering if God is real. He wants him to be. He needs someone to blame for the tragedy that has been his short twenty-three years. He considers if this is the most agonizing week he had ever endured. The only thing that may rival it is his mother’s passing.

It is because of this that he feels entirely and inescapably alone. The two people he relied on most had walked out on him, one after the other. The world felt more lonely than it ever had before. Despite his best efforts, he had pushed everyone away. Just like he always does.

He felt repulsive. Who could stand to be around him? Rejection ran through his body like a bullet.

He is wearing the black button up pajama set that he was given at the clinic. In his hand he holds a prescription bottle. Opening the lid, he finds a single white pill. He stares at himself as he swallows the pill dry with ease, having had too much practice doing so as a child.

It isn’t long until he is laying in his living room on his pull-out sofa. He leaves his side lamp on, filling the room with the dimmest of light. He can already feel the drug begin to slow down his thoughts, exhaustion taking over his body. The room around him becomes out of focus and fuzzy. 

Eddie clings to consciousness, torn between wanting the pain to end, and terrified of losing the one thing he loves.

An image of Richie’s glowing face greets him. He is laying in Eddie’s bed, the early morning sun glowing behind him. He looks ethereal.

One last tear rolls down Eddie’s cheek as he gives in and closes his eyes. 

_ Goodbye, Rich. _

Then he is fast asleep.

 

* * *

 

A large white van pulls up next to Eddie’s car on the side of the road. Out of the vehicle steps a broad-shouldered man with light brown hair that is styled like an overgrown bowl cut. He has a boyish charm with his skater haircut and rosy cheeks. He wears an excited smile and waves at another car pulling up. 

Ben Hanscom has done many, many Erasures. He is Bill’s right hand man, an apprentice of sorts. But even while he is proud of the work he does, Ben isn’t one to share his profession. 

Dr. Bill Denbrough really is a genius, but the procedure of memory depletion is still extremely taboo. Mental and Behavioral Health professionals have been trying to outlaw the practice, stating that it was “an avoidance of dealing with, and true recovery from, unprocessed trauma.”

Ben could concede that they had a point. But he also could not deny the healing that people seemed to undergo once the procedure was done. Families that were torn apart by a lost child, rediscovered their love and came back together. Loss of passion for a profession, could be easily restored after erasing a few years of the practice. The trauma from an abusive partner could vanish, poof, gone, after a few short hours of Ben’s time. 

He loves his job. 

The small car across the street put itself into park, and a small red-haired woman jumped out. 

But he might love Beverley more.

“Ben!” Beverly squeals. She threw her hands up in the air, jumping dramatically into his open arms. He laughed and let out a big  _ oof!  _ as he caught her. 

“My dear Miss Marsh, what  _ are _ you doing here at this late hour?” Ben smiled, setting her down.

“I may have snuck into Bill’s schedule… Peaked at where you might be heading tonight.” Her smile was wide as she admitted to her mischievous ways. She raised her eyebrows and tipped down her chin, jutting out her bottom lip. “Am I in trouble?”   


“Beverly! That is so, so against confidentiality!” They both just grinned like idiots at each other. Ben always felt like such a child when he was with her. He loved it.

“Well come on Marsh, if you are going to be here, you may as well make yourself useful.” She giggled at him, and he opened up the back of the van for them to start unloading.

Getting their suitcases full of equipment up the stairs to Eddie’s apartment was less than graceful. Multiple times Beverley had slipped, letting one of the many bags in her hands slip and fall down several steps of the stairs. “Bev!” “Sorry!” they whisper-hissed at each other. 

Once safely inside the apartment door, they had lined all of their bags against the living room wall. 

The first part of the procedure was always hardest for Ben. He scanned his eyes quickly around the room. Dishes were abandoned on the coffee table, books were knocked over on the floor, a pile of a week’s worth of clothes lay in the corner.

Most people going through the Erasure were in deep emotional pain. When Ben was coming into their homes, one of the most intimate places a person can go, the grief these people felt were always intensely evident. Ben walked through the entire house once. It didn’t take him long, it was just a studio apartment. Eddie had a small kitchen, an even smaller bathroom, and a living room. 

Beverly quietly walked up to the pull-out sofa. A man lay in the middle, on his back. He looked so small compared to the mattress. It looked like it was consuming him. She sighed. 

“Poor guy. I have been walking him through the whole process this week.”

Ben walked over, putting a hand on the small of her back. They both looked at the man thoughtfully. “What’s his name?” Ben asked.

“Eddie. Just when I feel like I have seen it all, someone has to come into the clinic and surprise me.” Her voice was soaked in sympathy. “I’m happy I can be here to see you work on him.”

Ben looked on at the man. He looked more like a boy, deep in his sleep. 

“Let’s get started then.”

Bev cleared the coffee table, taking dishes and trash into the kitchen. Ben unzipped several bags and set up his two large monitors on the table. He then took out a large box full of wires, and got to organizing.

In the span of about half an hour, they had created their own little workstation within Eddie’s home. 

“Alright, I’m gonna need your help with this.” Ben grunted, unwrapping a large dome-shaped device from its cloth carrier. 

They both stepped over Eddie’s body, lifting his head and slipping the headpiece around his forehead. Ben clipped in the remaining wiring, and set up a heart monitor to Eddie’s right pointer finger. Once they were done, they stepped back and admired their handy work.

Eddie didn’t stir once. 

Ben sat down on the couch and began to boot up the systems. Images of MRI and CAT scans of Eddie’s brain appeared before him. Ben stared for a few seconds, and let out a large sigh. 

“This is definitely a lover, or a companion or something. I mean, the memories are  _ everywhere.”   _ Ben says, ill humor thick in his voice.

When it came to deleting memories of a family pet, the procedure was overall straightforward and simple. People usually came home to their pets at night, said goodbye to their pets in the morning. Took them on walks, on road trips, camping. There is only so many places a pet can go and imprint on your everyday life. 

With people, especially lovers, it was much different. The memories and emotions seep into every fragment of your brain. Trips you took with them, phone calls you had, visits while you’re at work, family events. Even when you are away from them, you could see a movie or listen to a song and you still get this overwhelming feeling of  _ them them them _ . They follow you everywhere, with everything. Your world is blue and theirs is red and suddenly, no matter what you do, your whole world is purple. 

Ben looked on at his monitor and knew he already had a long night ahead of him.

Sensing his stress, Bev went rummaging in Eddie’s kitchen. “Aha!” She breathes, finding what she was looking for.

Coming back into the room with two glasses of Eddie’s whiskey, Beverly gingerly hands him a cup with a big smile.

_ Love is an infection of the mind _ , Ben thought, looking at her sweetly. They clinked glasses and took a drink.

“Okay. I am going to go ahead and get this thing warmed up and started. Once I figure out a pattern in his cognition, this bad boy can go on auto-pilot and we can…” Ben peaked out at her from the corner of his eye. 

Bev smirked at him from a chair in the corner. “We can play?” 

Ben blushed hotly and covered his nervousness with a laugh. “Yeah, we can play.”

Without another thought, Ben turned back towards Eddie, and went to work.

 

* * *

 

Eddie woke with a start. He looked around his room in a daze. He was sitting on his sofa chair in the corner of his living room. It was night out still. 

_ Is the procedure over? _

The watch on his wrist read 2:34 am. The only thing punctuating the room’s silence was the ticking of a clock.

Suddenly, _Richie_ opens the front door loudly, slamming it on accident. “Sorry,” He stage-whispered, flopping onto his back on the couch. 

Richie was in a bright pink leather jacket, his hair frizzy and unkempt. His face had been unshaven for a few days, and a light beard covered his lips and chin. The white t-shirt underneath looked as though he had spilled something on it. Richie’s signature matte red lipstick was smeared onto his cheek. Anger fired through Eddie’s pores like hot steam.

Then suddenly, comprehension washed over Eddie’s entire body, dowsing him like bucket of cold water. 

_ This is a memory. I’m asleep. They are doing the procedure right now. This, this… _

“This is the last time I saw you.” Eddie whispers out loud. This makes Richie, or the memory of Richie, move into action.

Slowly, the black haired man sits up and looks at Eddie, slightly ashamed. “I may have… probably… sort of... wrecked… your car…” Richie says, closing his eyes in embarrassment at the admission. 

The ghost of what was once anger flows through Eddie, like a shadow suspended by dust. 

“What? Richie! Are you drunk?” Eddie says, appalled. Eddie’s heard these lines before. He has seen this scene play out. He knows what will happen next. 

  
Richie rolls his eyes. “It was an accident, a one time thing! Jesus.”

“No, no! You don’t get to act like I’m the one being dramatic. You could of really fucking hurt someone, not to mention my  _ car _ !” 

“I know, I know.” Richie says, trying to remain calm through his slightly drunken stupor. He runs a hand through his poofy curls. “I’m sorry. I am. I’ll pay to get it fixed. I fucked up.”

“No! You don’t just get to wave your hands through your hair and say ‘Sorry I fucked up, mom! Won’t do it next time!’ and that be the end of it!” Eddie knew he was yelling louder than was necessary, but he didn’t care. Richie just stared through him, alcohol and apathy written plainly on his face. 

  
“Why didn’t you tell me you were going drinking after work?” Eddie says stiffly, arms cross. 

Richie sighed, then let out a loud groan. “God, Eddie, Jesus, I don’t know! I just wanted to go see my friends. They started getting drinks. We were just having fun. Am I not allowed to have fucking fun with someone other than you?” Richie spat, finally finding his voice in accusation. 

“Friends? Friends?! You mean those assholes from the bar you play at? Those are what you call fucking friends?” Eddie says, throwing his thin arms into the air defiantly. 

Eddie watched through his past self’s eyes, letting his body fall into its familiar path of rage and resentment. What an ugly night. The ugliest.

Richie scoffs in his face, retying his boots as he sits up from the couch. “At least I have fucking friends, Eddie. At least I talk to people. You don’t see my face stuck in a book while I cry about how lonely I am. At least I fucking  _ try! _ ” Richie’s voice rose higher and higher, desperate to find something that will stab Eddie  _ right where it hurts.  _

Eddie just lowers his arms to his sides, and looks at Richie with dead eyes. The next words he says are void of anger, and Richie is left with just pure fact and accusation. 

“At least the friends I have actually like me. At least my friends don’t use me to get a quick drink. I’m your only real friend.” Eddie says, letting the words burrow deeper and deeper into Richie’s skin like a flesh eating parasite.

“Face it. You buy drinks for drunks at that bar because it is the only way you can get people to like you.”

Eddie knew what he just did. He had been restraining himself for a few weeks, trying his best to never let those words slither past his lips. He knew exactly what it would do. 

Richie had told him once, how when he was a kid, he struggled to make even one friend. His undiagnosed ADD prevented him from creating true connections. He would overshare and overshare, and all it did was push kids away. Years of sitting alone on the swing set as a child. Years more of sitting alone smoking behind the bleachers as a teenager. 

_ “I guess I can be a lot to handle.” Richie had said bashfully, with just a hint of shame. “And now I guess I’m just afraid that I still don’t know how to make friends… Well, at least I made friends with you, Eds.” He winked. His face then went serious.  _

_ “I think you were my first real friend, Spaghetti.” Richie’s eyes poured into his, black and full of sincerity. _

But now, in that moment, Richie’s glossy eyes had turned to stone. He wasn’t going to let Eddie in. Not again. He didn’t deserve it.

Eddie knew this. And he had said it anyway. 

“Richie…” Eddie starts, reaching his hands out in apology.

“No.” Richie says. Eddie steps closer, and Richie takes a step back. 

_ “No!” _ He screams, making Eddie jump. The hurt is so evident in Richie’s face, it makes Eddie’s heart ache. “Fuck you.” He says weakly. 

Eddie remembers how this night went. Richie throws his books on to the floor, Eddie screams at him to get out. Richie leaves. That’s it. That’s the end of the their story. 

But he can’t do it. Can’t see it happen again. Eddie takes action.

“Richie! Please, I’m… I’m sorry!” Eddie yells, following Richie around the house as he grabs a few of his belongings. “Richie, please…” 

But when Eddie goes to grab his shoulder, his hands just fall right through him. Like a ghost. Like an apparition. 

Like an old memory. 

“Fuck!” Eddie curses to himself. He can’t change the past. 

But he has to try.

Richie throws his keys on to the coffee table. “Your keys. I won’t need them anymore.” Richie glowers, looking at Eddie with daggers in his eyes. He runs out the apartment door, slamming it. 

Eddie quickly rips the door back open, but Richie is nowhere in sight. Gone. Eddie sprints down the hall, down flights of stairs, eventually throwing the apartment complex front door wide open. “Richie!” he yells. 

Richie is already about a block away, walking hurriedly away from Eddie’s calls. 

Eddie happens upon his car and gasps. Richie had crashed it into a fire hydrant. A large dent began on the driver’s side door all the way back to the car’s trunk. Eddie lets a spew of curses flow out of his mouth as he hops into his car and starts it.

He quickly drives up next to Richie and he rolls down the window.

“Richie! Richie, please! Let me at least drive you home, please. Rich.” Eddie hollers from the window, desperate to get any reaction out of his partner. Partner? Are they still partners at this point? Looking back on it now, Eddie doesn’t know when it officially ends. 

“Get the fuck away from me, faggot!” Richie drunkenly screams. Ah, and there it is. Richie finally bites back, like a cornered dog. Right where he knows it hurts.

When Richie was younger, he was able to hide behind his bisexuality. He had dated many girls off and on throughout high school. No one batted an eye at him, and he tried his best to hide away from the other half of his true sexuality. That is, until he couldn’t anymore. His first experience with a man was well into his twenties, not long before he found Eddie.

Eddie, on the other hand, had it much worse. He didn’t even know he was gay until well after he was already being harassed for it. He encountered shoving, name-calling, and many good kicks to the gut. It was all only because he was seemingly more sensitive than the other boys. No thanks to his hypochondria, he was singled out almost instantly. 

Richie knew this. And sometimes someone, even the one you love, will remind you just where you came from.

This triggers Eddie immediately, and that ghost of anger consumes him once again. 

“Fine! FINE! I’m erasing you, Richie! I’m erasing you and you’ll be gone by morning!” He laughs out the window. 

“Is this what you wanted?! I’m erasing you and I’m fucking happy!”   
  


_ Delete _

 

* * *

 

Ben clicks the delete button in the upper right hand corner of his keyboard. He has been engrossed in concentration.

“Got one.” Ben finally claims, breaking the silence. This makes Bev jump, stuck in her own thoughts while Ben worked. She hums in acknowledgment, letting Ben continue to start the erasure process. 

“Whatcha thinkin about?” Ben asks.

“Bill.” Beverly says plainly. Dreamily. 

This makes Ben wince, and he closes his eyes momentarily. He knew this was coming. Whenever they hung out, even for a few short hours, Beverly always had something to say about Dr. Denbrough. 

_ “Oh, isn’t he just so brilliant? The way that he can transfigure any amount of…” _

_ “Did you see what Bill wore on St Patrick’s Day? A little green hat! All day long! I couldn’t stop laughing every time that I…” _

_ “It’s too bad Dr. Denbrough is married, I would love to go out and just listen to him talk about his work, it is so…” _

It was only a matter of time before she mentioned him again tonight, Ben muses. Sure, it was normal for a young girl to have a crush on the hot doctor. But Ben still couldn’t help finding himself discouraged that maybe Beverly really did  _ like like _ Bill, and that just made him further resentful of his current position… Ben shook the thoughts from his head. 

“What about Bill?” He inquired.

“I just love the way that he's been handling Eddie’s case. He has been one of our more sensitive clients, and time has really been of the essence. I can tell Bill has been stressed, but he handles it with such grace. Such empathy. It is astounding to me how one person can be so logically minded and still so perfectly personable…” She lets herself trail off, thick in a cloud of daydreams. 

Ben only nods silent, his eyes half-lidded and bored. 

This might be a  _ lot _ longer night than he anticipated. 

 

* * *

 

Eddie opens his eyes to a new scene. He is back in his apartment, but it is the morning before Richie crashes his car. Eddie sits on the ground next to the couch, legs folded and in his pajamas. 

He hears Richie in the other room, talking to himself. 

_ Trashmouth can never keep quiet, _ Eddie thinks in his head. Then, as Richie walks out of the bathroom and down the hall, Eddie gets an idea.

He grabs his car keys off of the key hook and a packet of ketchup from their fast food bag. He remembers when Richie did this to him the first time and tries not to giggle to himself at their inside joke.

He lays flat on the floor, legs contorted, and he squirts ketchup on to his neck to make it look as though his throat has been slain. He hides the keys underneath him.

“Eddie, have you…” Richie walks into the room and looks down at him. He smirks, squinting down at him. “Eddie… where are the keys?”

Eddie just lays there, eyes closed and tongue out like a dead cartoon character. 

“Eddie.” Richie nudges him with his shoe. “Eddie, I’m going to be late. Seriously.” Eddie remains still. 

“Eddie!” Richie isn’t playing games, and his shout surprises Eddie out of the charade. 

Furrowing his eyebrows, Eddie opens his eyes and silently lifts the keys up to Richie.

Richie just snags them out of his fingers, turns and immediately walks over Eddie’s body and out of the room. “God, I am fucking crawling out of my skin!” He closes the door behind him, leaving Eddie with his negative energy. 

_ Delete _

 

Eddie is thrown into a new memory once again. 

This time, he and Richie are eating take out on his couch. They are watching one of Richie’s favorite films,  _ Barbarella _ . Eddie finds himself bored. He glances at Richie every once in a while, but Richie pays him absolutely no mind. It is like Eddie isn’t even in the room.

It used to be a huge insecurity of Eddie’s, that he would bore Richie. At first, Richie found this to be endearing and completely impossible. But, as the months had gone on, Eddie found that his worst fears were coming true. Richie did nothing to prevent him from feeling this way either, openly sighing and giving every indication that he wished that he was anywhere else than with Eddie. 

It is a stingily painful and horrifying thing to realize for Eddie, and it is a boring, drawl, and lifeless experience for Richie. How had they gotten to this point, Eddie muses. 

He believed that at this point they are both feeling the holes and dissatisfaction from thinking that someone’s love could fix them and make them whole again. Only to find that each of their best efforts were a failure. They miscalculated. They were wrong. 

And now, while watching  _ Barbarella _ , Eddie has to stare at the corpse of their love and accept that it was one handful of dirt away from being completely buried.

Eddie rummages around in his take out box, playing with the rice rather than eating it. Then, he hears something. 

_ “Ben! AH! Stop it!” _ A far away girl shrieks. Eddie glances up, trying to peer around the corner of his hallway while he sits on the couch. 

_ “Ben!” _ A quiet thud in the kitchen echoes in Eddie’s ears. 

He stands up, and immediately circles into the kitchen. There’s nothing there.

“What are you doing, Eddie?” Richie calls. 

“Nothing, nothing…” Eddie says. He walks back into the living room. “Did you hear that?”

Richie glances up at him briefly, slurping some noodles. “Did I hear what?” 

 

* * *

 

“AH! Ben! BENJAMIN!” Beverly was yelling across the small apartment, jumping over Eddie’s sleeping body and running into the kitchen. She slides on her socks, making a pan go tumbling off of the counter on to the floor. 

“Be careful!” Ben shouts. She laughs joyously.

Ben had randomly taken a pillow off of the sofa and tossed it at Bev, making her spill her drink on herself. In rebuttal she threw the pillow back, but Ben wasn’t having it. He tickled her and chased her around Eddie’s living room until she finally found sanctuary in the kitchen.

“You are making so much noise!” He says, laughing despite himself. She laughs a goofy type of laugh and nods. 

“Yeah, wonder why, asshole!” She is flushed in the face from glee. Ben creeps closer, hands up and fingers wiggling like some sort of tickle-weapon, and Beverly yells again. “BEN!”

 

* * *

 

Eddie stands, completely bewildered. It sounds like there are people in his house.

“Rich, you seriously don’t hear that?”

“Eddie, babe, you are just acting paranoid. Please. Come sit down and watch Barbarella fuck the angel. It’s my favorite part.”

_ Delete _

 

* * *

The machine makes a light beeping sound, and Ben rushes back into the living room. He hits the delete button quickly, letting the monitor zone in on the next most recent memory and emotional contusion. 

 

“Now, now… Where were we?” He says lowly, whipping around and chasing Beverly again.

 

* * *

 

When Eddie blurrily blinks into a new memory his stomach drops. 

He is sitting in his car and it is a cold winter morning. He is waiting patiently for Richie to come out of his house. 

He remembers this day. Vividly. It is one memory that would haunt him the nights before he agreed to the Erasure. He put his forehead on the steering wheel, stomach flipping and absolutely dreading what was about to happen next.

Richie popped open the passenger door and sat right down. He had a small smile on his face, eyes trained on Eddie. He gave a half-hearted wink. “Hey, Eddie. Ready to go?”

His greeting sat poorly in Eddie’s gut. Something was off. Something wasn’t right. How had he only noticed just now?

“Richie… I have a question.” Eddie swallowed thickly. He braced himself for impact, anticipating the answer he knew was coming.

“Yeah, what is it?” Richie says, confused. 

“Um…” Gulp. “Why, um… Why haven’t you been calling me, um, Spaghetti… anymore?” His voice cracked in odd places and the question was delivered like he was asking for mercy.

Richie quickly looked away, out his own window. He released a breath that Eddie didn’t know he was holding. Richie lifted both hands to his face and rubbed his eyes, chewing over the best way to express his answer. “Eddie…” Eddie already felt tears well in his eyes. 

“It’s just you… You didn’t want me to anymore. I mean, you literally told me you  _ hated _ it. Every day. There’s only so many times I can try and play with you just to be shot down.” Richie puts simply, like the answer was addition or a three-step recipe. Like it was easy. Richie doesn’t look him in the eyes. His adam's apple bobs up and down as he swallowed thickly. 

“But… Richie…” Eddie doesn’t know how to reply. He did say he hated it. But that was part of their banter. The way they teased each other. It was the only way Eddie knew how. But he didn’t mean it. 

“I didn’t mean it, Rich.” He admits embarrassingly. 

Eddie looks up to see Richie already looking at him with a hard stare. 

“You didn’t mean it? Eddie, the last time we fought you literally spit in my face, “Don’t fucking call me Eds.” It hurt me. You hurt me.” Richie’s voice was quiet. “I didn’t think you would use something like that against me. I thought you liked it.” 

Eddie did like it. But how could he defend himself now? Richie continued on, words coming out of his mouth like vomit.

“It wore me out, Eddie. You wore me out. I can only be rejected by you so many times before…” Richie didn’t finish his sentence. He didn’t have to. Richie rubbed his eyes with his sleeve. Tears left a trail on the cotton.

Eddie doesn’t mean to deliver his comebacks with as much passion as he does. If he could just restrain himself, his tone... His temper just always got the best of him. And now the best of Richie.

If he could think about anything but himself for once he… He wouldn’t of ruined one of his favorite fucking things.  _ Their _ favorite things. 

“We could try again…” Eddie says weakly.  _ Please say yes. Please say we can try again. _

Richie was incorrigible. Had Eddie truly worn him down to the point of giving up? Truly killed his spirit in that special way only Eddie could? 

“No, Eddie. It got ruined. It won’t be the same. Just let it die.” 

Just let it die. 

So he does. 

_ Delete _

His car fades away, the blue light changing into a crisp orange one. He finds himself walking with Richie through a Saturday Market, and the sun beats down on their face.

It is a beautiful day. They are both full of hope for the future. They hold hands lazily, looking at different pieces of art and trinkets to buy.

“Hey, Eddie. I was thinking something crazy. Like, crazy fucking crazy. But I think we should do it.” Richie looks over his through wild strands of his curls. Richie’s hair is down to his shoulders and absolutely wild. Eddie is fond of it. 

“Of course you are. How crazy?” Eddie asks. He is already apprehensive. Two years of dating has taught him that when Richie says something is off the wall, it is really fucking off the wall. 

“Well… I’ve been thinking of taking the band on the road. Like, actually touring. Traveling. Roadtripping!” Richie all but yells, releasing his hand from Eddie’s in order to lift his hands up into the air. 

Eddie laughs, but it is a little forced. He tries to give Richie a smile but he knows it comes out looking funny on his face. 

Richie’s band only did the occasional local show, and he doesn’t think Richie has ever played a venue outside of Maine. Richie has always been a silly daydreamer in Eddie’s eyes, but he never thought that Richie would actually act on any of his hair-brained schemes. 

Richie waits for a response and nudges Eddie’s shoulder when he doesn’t get one. “Well? What do you think, Barbarella?” 

Eddie looks down at his feet as they stroll. “Richie, I… I think we should talk about this later. Like, at home.”

Richie looks slightly taken aback, and tries to control his face from contorting in confusion. 

“Why not? Why can’t we talk about it now?” Richie persists, trying to get Eddie’s true feelings out into the air. Eddie was never good at expressing his true criticisms in a… productive way. He knows he adapted that flaw from his mother. He mostly just tries to keep his judgements to himself, but Richie never lets him.  

“Tell me, why can’t we talk about it now?”

“It’s just… Richie… I don’t know if you’re ready. If we should do that together. I mean, what about our jobs?”   
  


“We will be making money on the road, silly.” Richie says, deadpan.

“Please don’t make me say it, Rich.”

“Oh, oh there it is. I knew it.” Richie scoffs. “God, you’re just like my parents. If you don’t believe in me, who will, Eddie? You know how long I’ve wanted to do this. If you don’t, who will?” 

Richie takes a cigarette out of his pocket, and lights it quickly. He sucks in a long drag and slowly lets it out through his nose. 

“Richie, I just want you to be realistic. I mean…” Eddie shouldn’t say it. “... It’s just a dream you had when you were a kid.” Trying to create an air of finality, Eddie speeds up his pace. 

“Maybe if I had some form of support, a little bit of fucking faith, I could do the things I’ve always wanted to. I’m not a child that needs to grow out of my dreams just because yours didn’t work out, Eddie.” Richie says. Richie is hurt, and he wants someone to hurt with him. It is just who he is. 

Eddie keeps walking at a faster pace, a few feet ahead of him. He doesn’t want to admit that Richie is right.

_ Delete _

Eddie didn’t think that he would have to relive all of these memories in real time. Didn’t know it would be so soul-sucking, but it is. He supposes that if he knew that he would have to masquerade as his past self, he would of reconsidered the Erasure. 

He feels like his mind is on fire and his body is tired from having to live through the familiar motions and reenact the painful recollections. 

The next memory that appears before him is tender and sad. It is a bitter reminder of how broken he really is. 

He and Richie are wrapped in each other’s arms, warm in bed. Richie’s large and long body encompassed all of Eddie. He feels wrapped up pretty like a Christmas present. Richie has been talking to him about a large woman that had come into Barnes and Nobles and had quite a bone to pick with him. 

Eddie had laughed with him sympathetically, told him he shouldn’t have to put up with such awful people. Customer service was a disheartening job. Richie was too good at it to give it up, always flirtatious and helpful. 

“No, no, she really was the all-time worst! She was so adamant that I had charged her the wrong price, and honestly would not let up until I called management…” As Richie spoke, Eddie found that the description of this mystery woman was reminding him of none only than his own mother. 

Images of her red and angry face filled and spread across his mind like a fever. 

_ Wash your hands, Eddie. Take your medicine, Eddie. That could give you cancer, Eddie.  _

The number of times his little hands had cracked from the amount of times he washed them was immeasurable. He couldn’t even get through his short walk from class to class without the puff of his inhaler. 

When he had learned that all the medications he was taking were placebos, his small world had collapsed. The realization that he was robbed of a normal childhood was crushing, even at the tender age of 13. He knew that he had had a normal life taken away from him.

The amount of teasing he had endured, the late nights of worrying if this,  _ this _ was the illness that would truly kill him, like his mother feared. 

And he wasn’t saved after that, either. The trauma and abuse from years of illness and deception plagued the rest of his young life. 

The only sickness he knew for certain he had was mental. And there was no cure for that. Terminal. Like he always feared. 

_ Germs, bacteria, viruses, contamination, infection, HIV, cancer, terminal, terminal, terminal.  _

Richie moved to hover above Eddie’s body, hands on either side of his head. The sight of Richie’s long hair and scruffy beard made the pressure in Eddie’s heart lighten for a moment. 

Then, Richie bent down for a kiss. 

Panicking, Eddie turns his head to the side. A big kiss is pressed into his cheek, and Richie retracts again to look down at Eddie. 

“Hey, Spaghetti. Look at me.” Eddie doesn’t move.

“Eds…” Richie places another kiss to his cheek.  _ Unclean. Too close… Dirty. _

“Eds, what’s wrong? Come on, give Ol’ Richard a kiss.”

“Richie, just stop.” Eddie says abruptly. He sits up, lightly pushing Richie’s shoulder out of the way.

“Hey, hey. What’s going on? Hey, talk to me-” Richie reaches for his hand and Eddie rips away from him like he’s been burned.

“Please don’t touch me.” He says, voice just above a whisper. 

Richie was silent for a long moment. 

“Why are you doing this?” He asks, hurt terribly by the rejection. 

Eddie knew how hard it was for Richie to initiate physical contact. He knew his fears of being repelled. But Eddie couldn’t help it, not this time. He couldn’t stand the idea of being… soiled. 

“Eds. It’s okay. I’m clean. See? I washed my hands before I even laid down with you.” Richie was used to Eddie becoming uncomfortable when he came home from work, covered in book dust and sweat from riding his bike to Eddie’s apartment. 

Richie tried his best to adjust his lifestyle to appease Eddie. He washed his hands after almost everything he did. Even had hand sanitizer on his keychain in case they were out where he couldn’t. He showered every day, something he used to only do maybe twice a week. And always,  _ always _ brushed his teeth before kissing him. 

They had been strange, but easy adjustments. Richie understood. 

Until he didn’t.

Richie tried to touch Eddie’s shoulder, only for Eddie to jerk away. 

“I said don’t touch me, Richie!”

Richie immediately yelled back. “Hey, hey! Don’t do this. Don’t do this, Eds. It’s just me.” Richie was pleading with him. Please don’t reject him. Please accept him. Don’t do this, Eddie. 

“You don’t get it, Richie.” Eddie says, trying to distance himself across the bed. “We are too different. I thought you could just accept these.... Quirks-” That sounds wrong. “... or, or flaws, that I have, but you can’t. You can’t.”  _ Just don’t touch me.  _

“It's not that I can’t accept them, Eddie.” The lack of “Eds” and the formality of “Eddie” cut into him like a hot knife. Striking, and then a stinging burn set in. “It's just that you can’t find a way to let them go. You can’t just move on.” Richie says.

“You can’t just mold and change me to be the person you want, Richie.” Eddie says weakly, trying to defend himself from the corner he had backed himself into.

“I don’t want you to  _ change _ . I just want you to… I don’t know… Grow. Push past all these barriers your mother set for you. You’re bigger than that.” Richie means it as a compliment, but it just feels like a stabbing attack. 

Eddie isn’t bigger than that. This is who he is. Who he was raised to be. He can’t just change the very foundation of who he is. He can’t change the way he was born. Rejection settles in his gut like hot cement. 

Richie tries to kiss him again.

God, Eddie loves him so fucking much. 

But it isn’t enough this time.

“Don’t touch me, Richie.” Eddie whispers. He walked straight up into the dragon’s den, and offered himself to be eaten. He gave into the beast. Eddie had given up fighting for the day.

Unknowingly, he had pushed Richie farther away than he ever had before.

Richie leaves.

 

_ Delete _

Next thing Eddie knows, he is being spun around rapidly in Richie’s room. Colors rushed through his gaze, movie posters and hung up vinyls fly across his vision. Richie’s firm and hairy arms are wrapped around him in a vice grip, holding Eddie up in the air as he spins them both around and around.

Then, Eddie goes flying, crashing onto Richie’s mattress. Richie gives him no time to escape, jumping on top of his body, crushing his tiny lungs.  

Eddie screams girlishly and Richie goes straight for the kill- neck kisses!

“Richie!” Eddie giggles, trying his best to pry Richie’s fingers away from tickling his ribs. 

“Spaghetti!” Richie mocks back at him, breathing hard from the exertion of lifting Eddie in the air for so long. Eddie screams again, this time in attack. He somehow crawls onto Richie’s back, hands around his neck, and he holds on for dear life as Richie pretends to buck like a horse. 

A soft song plays lightly through Richie’s record player, framing this moment as one of the most intimate and sweet memories Eddie could cling to. He didn’t want the feeling attached to this moment to disappear. He wanted to stay right here, live in this tiny corner of the world, and never face reality again. 

_ Now your hair is long. _

_ And you look so thin. _

_ You're always so pale, _

_ But something has changed. _

 

_ You’re almost a man. _

* * *

 

 

Ben and Bev are both laying on either side of Eddie’s legs. They pass a joint silently back and forth. The monitor on the table beeps, indicating that another memory has been properly disposed of. Bev puffs out a few decent smoke rings. Ben takes the joint and turns to her, taking a long drag. 

“I had the strangest client the other night.” Ben says, eyes distant as he remembers the incident. He passes back to Beverly.

“What happened, babe?” She says, noticeably relaxed and happy from smoking. 

Ben almost shrugged, laying back down as he spoke.

“I don’t even know. I had arrived on site at around 8:05, so I was technically late, even. I got together about half of the equipment, and went inside. And you wouldn’t believe it- He was still awake.” Ben says, bewildered.

Now it is Beverly’s turn to sit up and look over Eddie.  _ “What?” _

“I know!” Ben exclaims. 

“Did he just forget to call and cancel?”

“No, he didn’t. And that isn’t even the weirdest part- It was when I actually got talking to him that shit started to get strange.”

This made a frown grow across Bev’s freckled face. “Was he okay?” She asks softly. “Did I work with him?”

Ben sits up so he can properly see Beverly’s eyes as he speaks. “I don’t know- do you remember a guy named Richie?”

 

* * *

 

_ Four years and I still cry sometimes, _

_ First love never die. _

_ First love never die. _

 

Richie has now gotten the upper hand, Eddie’s legs pinned under his as he wails out three huge raspberries on to Eddie’s tan stomach. Eddie is literally crying, tears spilling out all over his cheeks.

Richie thinks he looks absolutely gorgeous, and can’t stop laughing himself. Eddie takes advantage of his distraction, and crawls off and under the bed. Richie nearly howls with laughter.

“Are you under the fucking bed?! Spaghetti!” Richie gets on his hands and knees, pretending his extended hand is a huge claw, grappling at Eddie from under the mattress.

Eddie is just petite enough to remain out of his reach, right in the middle of the underneath of the bed. He is breathless with laughter and he lets out one loud yell as Richie almost swipes at him.

Suddenly, soft and distant in Eddie’s ears, he hears someone speaking just outside of Richie’s bedroom door.

_ “Do you remember a guy named Richie? Richie Tozier?”  _ Ben’s voice asked.

Eddie stops laughing and lays completely still. His eyes are bugging out of his head when he hears the reply.

_ “No, no I don't. Is he the last memory you had to erase, Ben?” _ Bev’s voice replied.

Eddie recognized her voice and his name from earlier; in a separate memory. In his kitchen…

“Eddie, this isn’t fun anymore. Now it’s just hide and seek.” Richie whines. Then, when Eddie doesn’t reply, “Alright, fine. If you want to play so bad, I’m next! Count to 30!” 

Richie just runs over to his curtains, and quickly shuts up. You can still easily see his silhouette through the drapes because of the sun shining from outside. Eddie finally crawls out from underneath the bed. 

 

* * *

 

“He had been waiting for me all day, apparently. And he hadn’t taken his pill yet.” Ben explains. “He said he was too scared by himself.” This makes Bev jut her bottom lip out at him again, her universal sign for “I feel sad at the thought.” 

“What did you do?” she asked.

“I just… Sat with him. Walked him through the process again, just to reassure him it was all safe and stuff. And then he told me it wasn’t that he was afraid of the process itself, it’s just that he was having… Doubts.”

“Doubts?” Bev inquires. No one has ever come to them when they have had  _ doubts _ . Not only is the procedure costly, but it is an absolute last solution for most everybody. “What made him have doubts?” 

“Apparently he was erasing a lover. He seemed so… Desperate. To forget them. Like he couldn’t last another second thinking of them.”

 

* * *

Eddie was listening closely now sitting softly on the edge of the bed. Richie huffed in impatience from behind the curtain. 

_ “I think that their love failing had hurt him deeper than he had thought. He seemed angry, and insecure. He said he just felt worthless. But he still couldn’t bare to let go. Like, what is a man to do, y’know?” _

_ “Yeah.” Bev says.  _

Eddie couldn’t believe what he was hearing. The people who were doing the procedure, they had done Richie’s too. And Richie… Didn’t just do this for shits and giggles. He didn’t go through the procedure just to get the last word. He had still loved him, to the very end.

Richie still loved him.

The epiphany shook Eddie down to his core.

 

* * *

 

“He almost completely cancelled the procedure right there. Said he couldn’t bare to do it, said he made a mistake.” Ben grows silent. He then sighs.

“Eventually I convinced him to just go through with it. I mean, the guy looked bad. Shaken up. He was all unshaven and pale. I don’t know… I just know how healing this whole process can be. I wanted to see something change for him.” Ben concludes.

“That’s beautiful.” says Beverly. She looks at him earnestly.

Ben just smiles at her, giddy with the feeling of being in love. Even if she was half in love with someone else. Ben would never hold it against her. She was allowed to love more than one person. It was just another thing that made Bev, Bev.

“You’re beautiful.” 

Slowly, gingerly, she takes his face in one of her hands. She keeps steady eye contact with him until the very last second, giving him every chance to pull away.

They kiss.

 

* * *

 

“Richie.” Eddie yells from his place on the bed, spinning around to face him.

“I’m not coming out until you find me.” He says.

Eddie laughs, a new feeling of giddiness welling up inside of him. 

“Richie!”

“Eddie!”

“They said you tried to cancelled the procedure.” Eddie says, breathless.

“What procedure? Spaghetti, what are you talking about?” Richie asks, trying to find his way out of the tangle of curtains. 

Another realization hits Eddie like a barrelling train. 

“They are going to delete this. Fuck. Fuck! No, I can fix this.” Eddie tries to find Richie in the mess of drapes, but they can’t seem to find each other’s hands. It feels as though the curtains just getting thicker and thicker, like the memory is slowly turning into a nightmare.

“They are going to take you away, Richie! Fuck! And then I can never fix this! God, what was I thinking?!” He yells. Seriously, what the fuck was wrong with him? I mean sure, of course Richie would pull this kind of shit, but Eddie? Erasing his memory? Jesus, what was he  _ thinking?! _

The few weeks before their split had happened Eddie had noticed a change in Richie. His smiles didn’t always reach his eyes. He was sleeping more often than ever. The same stupid movies no longer made him laugh like they used to. He was slowly being drained of his Richie-ness. 

Eddie had noticed. But had he changed his own behavior? He didn’t think to. He was too afraid to ask why. In the back of his mind, he thought that it was because of him. That Richie wanted to leave. But that wasn’t it- no.

Eddie was pushing him away.

“You needed me. You were getting drunk all the time, always alone- I pushed you away. Richie, I’m so sorry I pushed you away. Richie, we have to get out of here. We have to go before they take this away from me.” 

And as soon as their fingers meet in the middle-

_ Delete _

-

_ Do you feel the same? _

_ I will never love again.  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YO. If you have any comments or critiques, I'd love to hear them!!  
> Also, you can come hang out with me on tumblr @reddieloserz if you want to friggin talk!!  
> Thank you for reading :o)


	4. Subconcious

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had so much fun with this chapter. I think it is actually the longest one so far and it took the least amount of time. I loved pooping this one out! (and when i say 'pooping' it out, i mean spending the better part of two weeks not only writing but taking a few hours to edit and cut too lol') ((i care a lot))  
> I hope you enjoy!
> 
> -
> 
> Spaghetti's Song: Oh Yoko - John Lennon

Richie Tozier thinks he is losing his mind. 

Here he is, alone (again) on a Friday night. His apartment smells stale and stagnant, like he hasn’t spent any real time here in weeks. There is no food in his fridge. There is no one he can call.

He is acutely aware of the soft laughter coming from his next door neighbors. They sound happy. They are really enjoying each others company. His heart pangs with jealousy.

The last few days have been strange for Richie. Everytime he goes to sit down and practise his guitar, he can’t seem to emote. No passion comes forward. He weakly plucks at the strings, and grows bored almost instantly. It is startling for him, he has never felt any disinterest when he was playing music.

Something was lacking when he went to create his art. He would try to allow his mind to wander, to find muse, but none would come. He would put a vinyl on his record player, searching for some spark that would inspire him to play. But all the albums he played felt dull and lifeless. Nothing special radiated out of them like they used to. It was all so… monotonous. 

Once he had given up on playing music, started flipping through his movie collection. He watched a few different ones. Some that used to make him laugh, others that had made him cry. 

No emotions came.

He felt like a vacuum had snaked into his body and sucked his beating heart right out of him. 

He feels discomfort cover his whole body. He feels almost itchy inside his own skin. He stands up off of his sofa chair, and tries sitting on the couch instead. It only takes him a few seconds before he switches positions, laying on his side. Then he switches again, laying on his back. Then again, and again.

He felt completely unsettled. Nothing felt right. Everything was slightly off, as if someone had come into his home and moved all of his furniture two inches to the left. Something in his very bones told him that everything was wrong, wrong, wrong. 

Richie stands up and wraps his arms around his chest in an attempt to comfort himself. But hugging yourself isn’t like being hugged by someone else, Richie has learned. His heart yearns for something. For a someone.

It is all so  _ confusing. _ Richie never used to be one for heartache or longing. Besides that, what was he even longing  _ for? _ He can’t seem to understand. He feels drained and empty, like a bloodless cadaver.

His confusion quickly grows into disorientation. His brain feels fuzzy with an array of emotions. The unfamiliar feeling of dissatisfaction and craving eat away at his rational mind.

Loneliness was like home to Richie. He bathed in the lukewarmness of it. Soaked in it. He can be in a room full of people and feel completely dejected. Despite his best efforts to connect, he never really could. He couldn’t help but feel as though everyone wanted to simply keep their distance. Protect themselves from him. People were always a half-step away. From real closeness. Tenderness was really what he wanted. 

As these deprecating thoughts consumed him, Richie realized he was having trouble breathing. Grabbing his bright orange windbreaker off of his coat hook, he quickly walks out of his apartment to get some fresh air. Maybe it will help clear his head.

He sets off down his street, taking an immediate left onto a long stretch of road. His steps are quick and determined. Anything to get him away from the not-quite-rightness of his home.

Richie was a real hoot. He knows this. A self-proclaimed comedian. A clown. A joke. He was always good at making people laugh. It was the thing he most liked about himself. 

But laughter is all it was. He tried his best to attract as much attention as he could. That would fill the vacancy inside of him, wouldn’t it? But nobody ever seemed to take the bait. He was never able to truly reel them in. No amount of charm he would muster could make them stay for long. 

Was it him? Was there truly something wrong with him? Were all those kids in high school right? Did he really not belong… anywhere? 

As a familiar street sign comes into view, Richie takes the first right onto the road of another suburban neighborhood. He feels a strange compulsion to find something. While he was lost in his thoughts, his body was carrying him to a specific destination. The farther away from his apartment, the better he felt. He trudged on, looking around for anything familiar.

As he walked around, swallowed by the darkness the night created, he let his mind cascade with random thoughts. He felt aimless and wandering, like a body floating through space. Organic matter with no purpose. 

He had always tried to find meaning in life through others. He was quite a people person, despite all of his shortcomings, and he always considered people to be his calling. He wanted to entertain. He wanted to find someone who would stay.

When he did think he found someone, oh boy, did it drive him wild. Human interaction and physical affection were like a drug he just couldn’t quit. He needed it more than he needed food. He was insatiable. Like a rabid animal. And he was starving.

Should he call Amanda? Amanda was always a sweetheart. The quiet type, but that doesn’t mean she wasn’t fun when she wanted to be. She really liked him. 

Even then, though, he felt disconnected. Far away from her. Even when he was close to being really, truly loved, he still managed to feel like he was experiencing a close encounter of the fourth kind. Like it wasn’t real. Like it couldn’t really be true.

As he slows down his speed-walking, Richie nearly gasps at his own discovery. 

Right in front of him stands a small one-story home. As he stares, a car pulls up into the driveway, and the driver kills the engine. He can hear two men talking, lightly bickering with one another. 

Richie feels something tug on his heartstrings, a call to move forward, when he finally sees who the mystery men are. Walking out of their car doors and up to the front steps, Richie calls out to them.

“Mike! Stan! H-hey!” 

Each man stops dead in their tracks. Then, slowly, at the exact same time, they turn to face him. The pair of men share similar shell-shocked gazes, their eyes nearly bugging out of their heads. 

“R… Richie?” Stan utters. “What…”

“What’s up?” Richie says, jogging lightly over to them. A sense of companionship and comfort warms his heart up immediately. He usually only saw Mike and Stan when they came out to the bar to see his shows, and they weren’t necessarily best friends. Just good acquaintances.

Still, the feeling of togetherness filled Richie’s body up to the brim. He couldn’t place the sensation. It was as if the confusion he was experiencing was beginning to deplete. Like he was closer to the answer he was looking for.

Instead of sharing any of these thoughts with them, though, Richie just blurts, “Is that pizza?” He gestures towards the pizza box in Mike’s hands. 

This makes Stan’s lips frown and Mike’s lips tear into a smile. 

“Yeah, it is, Richie. Is that a cigarette?” Stan asks.

Richie hadn’t noticed that he started smoking on his walk. A mindless habit. 

“Yeah, you didn’t know I smoked?”

“I just thought you were trying to quit for Ed-” Mike quickly snapped his arm back, sending his pointy elbow into Stan’s ribs. The thinner man grunted, then whispered “oh, sorry” as comprehension spread over his face. 

Richie couldn’t help but send them both questioning glances. “What was that?”

Stan immediately composed himself, lifting his eyebrows as he shot back, 

“More importantly, what are you doing here? We haven’t seen you since your concert two months ago. How did you find where we lived?”

Richie raised his hand into his curls sheepishly, and tried to send them a reassuring smile. It came out looking as forced and awkward as the situation felt.

“I, uh… I don’t know. I just went on a quick walk to smoke and I, uh… I ended up here. At… At your house.” If this isn’t the weirdest night of Richie’s life, then he doesn’t know what is. “Almost  felt, um, compelled. Just showed up.”

Mike and Stan look each other in the eyes, having a secret conversation in their expressions that only they understood. They were using the secret language all couples acquire. Just when Richie is positive they are going to turn and give him a swift farewell, Mike breaks the silence.

“Richie, you don’t look too hot. Want to come hang out inside for a sec?”

 

* * *

Ben and Bev are both laying on Eddie’s couch, completely wrapped up in each other. They both are only clad in their underwear. They have been kissing each other breathless, only pulling away any time they hear the auto-pilot from the machine  _ ping _ when a memory has been eradicated. 

He kisses her nose again and again, trying to give each freckle on her face their own personal smooch. He doesn’t want to miss a single one. She just hums once as he starts to do it, scrunching up her face as she huffs out a small laugh.

“Ben, what are you doing?”

“Got to tell each of your freckles I love them.” She lets out one of her signature honking laughs.

“I think they know now, Ben. You can stop.”

“No! Almost done. I can’t let the others go kissless.” 

Bev rests her face on his shoulder, letting him finish his work.

 

* * *

Mike and Richie are sitting at the Uris’ dining room table, eating their pizza. Stan is standing in front of the stove with his back to them. He is boiling water to make tea.

It was a long and awkward silence that followed them when Richie entered their house. There were pictures up on their walls from vacations and birthdays, a photo of their graduation. They lived in a modest sized home, but it was perfect for the two of them.

It was only when Richie sat at their dining room table for dinner that he felt how completely odd and misplaced he really was. Why was he here? Out of sheer nervousness, he swallows down his last bit of pizza dryly and begins one of his famous long winded Richie-rants. 

“So, uh, how long have you guys been together? I saw that you two graduated at the same high school and college, were you high school sweethearts? Have you always known you were gay? Personally, I think it’s pretty hot. Sharing stolen kisses under the school bleachers, not wanting anyone to know your little secret. A very forbidden love story, one for the ages.” Richie tries to keep a clever smiled glued to his face, but he feels it falter and eventually fall clean off. He clears his throat awkwardly.

Mike never knew what to say in times like these. He always felt like he was an eloquent man, but in situations as tense and awkward as this one, words failed him. He turns instinctively to Stan, waiting for the other man to come up with some rebuttal. 

Instead of responding like a normal human beings, both men remain silent. Stan is completely on edge. He knows he is walking on eggshells here. Richie is inside of their home. There are picture of Eddie plastered everywhere. How Richie has failed to see them truly amazes Stan. 

Forgetting pretty much everything that Richie has said to them, Stan just asks questions back.

“You really like pizza too, huh? You like italian food?”

“I, uh. Yeah. I do.” He slowly grabs another slice from the greasy box in front of him.

“Do you like pasta?” Stan asks. His voice is oddly strained inside of his throat. He pours hot water into a mug, placing a tea bag inside to steep. “Like, uh, spaghetti?”

Stan looks up at Richie just in time to see Richie’s body go completely rigid.

Richie slowly looks up at him, eyes wide and piercing. 

“What did you say?” 

Stan lowers the hot mug to the countertop, glancing at an uncomfortable Mike before turning back to look at Richie. “...Spaghetti? Do you like spaghetti?”

Richie slowly places his piece of food back on the table. He stands out of his chair, wooden legs scrape against hardwood floor. Richie raises both of his hands and covers his face, rubbing his eyes forcefully. 

Mike places a hand on his arm. “Richie, are you okay?”

Richie pries his fingers away from his face, and gives a watery smile to Mike. His eyes are slightly red now, and tears begin to pool. 

“I, uh, yeah, I’m fine. Can I maybe get a glass of water?” He clears his throat again.

Mike frantically looks over at Stan, who gets the message and quickly fills up a cup for Richie. With shaking hands, Richie grasps the cup before taking a long drink. 

As he does so, Mike and Stan look each other dead in the eyes.

_ What the fuck did you do? _ Mike’s eyes scream.

_ I don’t know! But I fucked up!  _ Stan’s eyebrow raise replies.

Richie places the cup onto the counter with a loud  _ thump _ and emits a breathless laugh. 

“Wow, um, I’m sorry. I don’t feel so good. I, uh, wow, I’m really confused. What am I doing here again?” Richie seems completely dazed, eyebrows furrowed and smile false on his lips. 

Right as Stan is about to offer him his tea, Richie’s eyes land right on one of Stan’s favorite photographs.

Within a black frame shows a picture of Eddie, Mike, and Stan, all standing in front of Richie’s band as they play a show at  _ The Quarry. _

As Richie stares, Mike can feel his heart jump into his throat. No one shows any intention of moving. You can basically hear the gears in Richie’s head turning as he blankly looks at the photograph. As the seconds drag on, Mike finally stands up and places his hand on Richie’s arm once more.

“Come on, Richie, maybe you should sit down.” Richie just nods as he pries his wide eyes away from the picture, instead choosing to stare right into Mike’s very  _ soul. _

The three men settle down into the living room, each of them taking a cushion of the couch, making sure not to touch a seemingly paralyzed Richie. 

“Richie, how are you feeling, man? What is going on?” Mike urges, anxiety pooling in his stomach. He knew exactly what was going on, and he felt absolutely horrid about it.

Mike also found that he truly had affection for this man. While Richie and Eddie had dated, Mike found himself warming up to the Richie that Eddie described. He knew that underneath all of the pain he was causing Eddie, he was a good man. A good friend. 

_ Relationships were just… complicated. _ As the thought floated through his mind, Mike’s eyes settled on Stanley. 

Stan, on the other hand, was much harder to get through to. Stan had a outer shell that was very hard to crack. He didn’t even call Eddie a ‘friend’ officially until he had been sleeping over at Stan’s house for well over a month. He didn’t let people in easily. This defense mechanism kept him safe. Kept him unhurt.

So why did he feel such a strong urge to help Richie? To be there for him? What had Richie ever done for him? Even as he wrestled with these questions, Stan still couldn’t resist the urge to pat Richie’s leg. 

“Richie? Talk to us.” Just when Stan is convinced Richie has turned into stone, he reanimates, giving a humorless laugh and throwing both of his hands into his bush of curls.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I feel like I’m going crazy. Honestly.” Richie’s voice betrays his statue-like demeanor, voice cracking and shaking as he tries not to cry.

“Crazy how?” asks Stan lightly.

“I don’t know, like, like my skin is about to come off, my face is melting, nothing makes any fucking SENSE to me anymore!” Richie’s voice steadily rises into a shout, face becoming pink with aggravation. He turns to Stan, eyes rapidly searching his face for reassurance. “What is happening, Stan? What did you do?”

Stan just raises his hands in defense, trying to show he means no harm.

“Richie, I didn’t do anything. You showed up to our house, and now you are having some sort of breakdown. There is something wrong with you and we don’t know what.” 

Stan hates the way the lie feels sliding off of his tongue and out of his mouth. He and Mike both know what is happening. Richie was getting deja vu’s that didn’t add up. Triggers of memories that could never come to fruition. Richie’s brain was like an empty bottle where substance used to be. Richie’s mind was coming up short, going in circles, looking for some recognition. All the components were there, as he stood in the Uris’ home, but the memories would never resurface. 

All they had done is confuse Richie and throw him into a disorienting downward spiral. They should've never invited him into their home. It was wrong of them to think they could help him. They just made everything worse.

Richie closes his eyes forcefully, his facial expression looking extremely pained. “I’m just so confused, I’m so confused. I don’t know what is happening.” 

Mike watches a small tear slide down Richie’s face. Loneliness has all but consumed his entire being. Richie truly seems alone in the world, set out to sea and never to be seen again. The waves were surely going to swallow him. He would die at the bottom of the ocean. Drowning, drowning, unable to breathe. A castaway.

Suddenly, as the urge hits him, Stan grabs Richie’s head, and slowly guides him to lay in his lap. Richie lets out a strangled, soft sob. Stan just continues to press his head there, Richie’s tear-covered cheek soaking into Stan’s slacks. 

Mike stares in disbelief and Richie doesn’t move. It turns out that Stan knew just what to do, because Richie’s panicked hiccups begin to slow and even breathes take their place.

Stan doing this triggers a memory within Mike. He remembers Stan doing almost the exact same thing to Eddie during their sophomore year of high school. Stan had always known how to calm someone down. Mike always knew how to get them to talk. They had always been the caregivers. A team.

Then, Mike slowly lifts Richie’s legs over to rest on the expanse of the couch, Richie’s feet finally settling in Mike’s lap. Stan leaves his hand to cover Richie’s face. Mike holds both of Richie’s sock-covered feet. Neither of them know how they go to this point. But all they want is to help their friend. This is the only way they know how.

Richie continues to cry into Stan. He feels the men supporting both ends of his body. Confusion slowly dwindles from fogging his senses, and that same feeling of belonging and companionship fills his body. Both men just hold him through his shaking. Richie feels their acceptance. He feels safe. 

And slowly, Richie drifts into a deep and hungry sleep.

 

* * *

 

Richie slowly opens his blurry eyes, his entire body feeling light and airy, like he is walking on clouds. The sensation is a deep contrast from the mountain of emotions that were weighing him down before. He now feels carefree. Untroubled. 

He is in front of a mirror, finishing up putting on his favorite matte red lipstick. It makes his lips look full and plump. The feminine look of the makeup is a contradicting look when paired with the scruffy beard sprouted from his face. He loves it. He hears a faint giggle from across the room.

Turning, his eyes land on a beautiful sight. So beautiful, Richie is almost certain he is inside of a dream.

He looks upon a familiar scene. It was a small apartment. There was an orange sofa chair in the corner. A pull-out sofa had its mattress unfolded and on top of it lays a half-naked man.

The man has his hairless chest exposed, his tan skin looking soft and smooth. His petiteness paired nicely with his bare chest. The man’s dark hair was coiffed into a nice cloud atop his head, some of his untameable curls leaving random ends sticking up all over the place. Bedhead. 

_ Beautiful bedhead,  _ Richie corrects himself. 

When Richie finally connects his eyes to the other man’s, he feels the wind get knocked out of him. An open and soft pair of chocolate doe eyes are looking at him. There is a particular gentleness to his expression. Open, watching, adoring. 

Richie realizes that the other man has remained just as silent as he has. They have just been watching each other silently. Soaking each other in. The sun outside the window is merciful and dim. 

Richie takes a step towards him. The man instantly scootches back on top of the bed covers. He holds up his hands meekly. There is a half smile painted on his small face. 

“Richie...” Richie takes another step. “Don’t.”

“Whatever are you talking about, Spaghetti Man?” Richie says, an English accent taking over his words. Richie raises his hands, his fingers bent and ready to grab at the small man’s sides. “I haven’t the faintest idea of what you mean, ol’ chap. May I?” Richie gestures towards his chest.

“Don’t even think about it, Tozier.” Spaghetti warns, but it is too late. Richie lunges and jumps right on top of him.

Richie is peppering sloppy kisses all over Spaghetti’s clean facet, ruining his own lipstick and completely covering that soft bare chest in red kissy marks. He knows the lipstick is probably smeared all over his face, the kisses destroying his prior immaculate application. 

Toothpaste and vanilla fill his senses as he starts pushing his lips into the smaller man’s hairline.

_ Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, _ his mind chants. 

As he finally remembers the other man’s name, he can’t help but say it out loud.

“Eddie, my love, sweet sweet Eds,” he mutters in between kisses, merciless in his lipstick attacks. “Tasty little Spaghetti Man.”

“Okay, Richie, okay!” Eddie finally manages to seize Richie’s hands and immobilize the taller man. “No more! You know I just showered!” Richie did. He lets a shit-eating grin take over his expression.

Pulling away from Eddie, Richie grips the end of his black shirt and brings it up to his face to wipe away the lipstick. He knows it will make Eddie’s skin crawl.

“Ugh, Richie! Gross!” Eddie giggles. “Use a towel, not your own damn shirt! You’re like a kid.” Eddie says playfully.

Then apprehension lights up Eddie’s eyes. It looks as though he had been hit with a frying pan of awareness. 

“Wait- Richie.” Eddie barks urgently.

“Hm?” Richie grunts through his shirt, wiping away the last of his lipstick. 

“I want to call it off.” Eddie sits up from where he is laying on the couch.

  
“Call what off?” Richie doesn’t understand what he means.

“The procedure. The Erasure. This.” Eddie sighs, pointing between the two of them. Eddie is quiet for a few moments. 

“Why did you do this to me, Rich?” Eddie mutters, not actually expecting an answer.

Slowly, comprehension spreads over Richie. 

Maybe this isn’t a dream. Not like he thought it was. Subconsciously, he thinks he knows what Eddie is talking about. Are his memories safe here?

_ My memories. _ Richie gasps, jaw dropping. He looks over at Eddie again. The short man’s face is pink from the blush of sadness that covers his face. Red smears and complete kiss prints paint over his body. Richie feels a tight squeeze around his heart.

How could he forget? He brings both of his hands to cover his face, his automatic defense when he feels shameful. He is filled to the brim with regret, recollecting all that he had done in order to get rid of Eddie. To get rid of all of this. Richie sighs.

“Eddie Spaghetti…” Richie begins. Eddie’s stomach does a fast flip at the sound of the familiar nickname.

Even after years of knowing Richie, despite all that they had gone through, all they had done to each other… Richie never seemed to fail at making Eddie feel like it was the  _ first time _ .

Whether in anger, or laughter, or complete infatuation. It always felt like it was the first time. Eddie always felt the same. His emotions were so strong they completely dominated his logical brain. Nothing made sense to Eddie but Richie, sometimes. 

As Richie chewed over what he wanted to confess to Eddie, a new realization dawned on him. Sure, the technician could get rid of the emotional cores. Get rid of the conscious memory. But he doubted they knew much about the subconscious mind. The spectrum of the brain that had yet to be explored. 

They couldn’t stop dreams from forming. Couldn’t stop the dreams from recreating those permanent feelings. His memories.  _ These _ memories. 

Richie’s heart began to race. Maybe there was hope for them after all.

“I don’t know. I just… It hurt so much. It hurt  _ too _ much.” Richie begins. That sounded too much like an excuse to him, so he tries to continue. 

All the while, Eddie stares at him wide eyed. Eddie wasn’t expecting an answer from Richie. He was expecting Memory Richie, unconcerned and unknowing. He never in his wildest dreams would have thought that Richie would be able to meet him here. In his subconscious.  

Eddie feels a swell of overwhelming love and overwhelming anger.  _ Stupid fucking Richie.  _

“I… I was a coward. And you know me. I do stupid stuff when it comes to you.” Richie looks into Eddie’s eyes at that.

But it was true. Richie would do anything for Eddie. Even things that didn’t make sense to him. Like constantly writing him notes. Leaving him dozens of voicemails. Taking three bus transfers just to say hi to him on his lunch break.

Richie’s love for Eddie scared the shit out of him. When he felt as though Eddie truly didn’t want him anymore, he felt like pathetic garbage. What was he without Eddie?  _ Nothing. _

His feelings frightened him. Maybe he was still a child, like Eddie said. But he still didn’t know how to cope with the emotions that Eddie always pulled out of him. But he didn’t know how he could tell Eddie that either. 

“It scares me. The way I feel about you.” Richie continues, voice quiet and strained with concentration. He wanted to get this right. He wanted to let Eddie know he was sorry. 

Eddie looks at him, first with a hard glare. But slowly, as Richie struggles to explain himself, Eddie’s expression melts into that of understanding. It looks gentle in all of its hurt.

“I would honestly jump off a cliff for you. Ha, I feel so pathetic sometimes. But when it comes to you, I… I feel like I would anything.  _ Could _ do anything. For you. You make me go out of my mind, Spaghetti.” Richie admits, a small smile crawling onto his face at the realization. He really would do anything for that little shit. 

“I almost hated it. I hated how deep I had dug myself into this… This pit called  _ love. _ ” Richie tries not to spit the word. But an old feeling of hurt washes over him. He was scared still. He was confused. “I just wanted an out.” Richie feels a sting of tears pinch his eyes. 

“I was so  _ hurt. _ ” Richie cries. The memory of their last night together poisons his mind.  _ It’s the only way you can get people to like you.  _

At that, Eddie slides off the bed and throws his arms around Richie’s broad shoulders. Eddie hands lay flat on his back. He gives a small squeeze.

“I’m so sorry, Richie. I am so sorry I did that to you.” Richie just nods against the top of his head,  wanting simply to be held.

“And I understand, Rich. I hear you.” Eddie says this because he really thinks he does. It was the physical world that scared Eddie. The germs, the people, the risk of it all. But maybe it wasn’t the physical that plagued Richie. 

It was the emotional. Eddie could try to understand that. Of all the risk that came with being outside… Imagine the risk of letting something on the outside  _ in. _ Eddie smiles. Maybe they learned something new about each other.

When Richie’s sniffling quieted and his tense shoulders relaxed, Eddie spoke up again.

“Okay, Romeo. That’s was very sweet but we all know you just did this because you’re a dumbass.” Eddie teases cooly, wiping a stray tear off of Richie’s cheek. 

This makes Richie nearly burst with uncontained laughter, the intensity of the conversation breaking out of its cocoon and flying away, like hundreds of butterflies.

“True. I am a dumbass. But, since it looks like you’re getting the same thing done to you, you’re a big dumbass, too.”

“Fine. I guess we are both dumbasses.” Eddie smiles sadly at him. 

“Yeah.” Richie just look at Eddie, for a long time. He just starts taking him all in. Sucking as much of the energy as he can that radiates off of Eddie’s body. 

“I love this memory of you. I loved this day. I felt so overwhelmed with how cute you looked.” Richie says. Eddie rolls his eyes at this.

“No, I’m serious. I kept trying to come up with stupid jokes or a prank that would make you pissed. Just so I could see those little cheeks turn pink. I just wanted to make you laugh.”

“Well I’m sure you made me plenty pissed, Rich. So good job.”

“Thank you, Spaghettio.”

“And you did, by the way. Make me laugh. You always made me laugh.” Eddie says quietly, just above a whisper.

They just stand in front of each other and share one of their  _ looks _ . Secret smiles tugged at their faces. Their eyes danced over each other’s vulnerable expressions. 

Try to imagine cutting yourself open, exposing all your insides. All of the ugly parts. Only to have someone say they understand. They still love you for it. They aren’t even that scared of you, anyway. Exposure is frightening, but what an amazing feeling. 

They found bliss in their mutual acceptance of each other. Something they hadn’t of been able to do before.

Forgiveness soon blooms across their chests, just like that. Simple forgiveness. 

Eddie feels contentment wash over his body. Richie feels the seeds of confusion wither. He is sure of what he wants now.

“I want us to stay together, Eds.”

Maybe they really were meant to heal each other. Maybe they weren’t as wrong for each other as they thought. 

Eddie takes a step forward, hands raising to rest on Richie’s chest. He has a face-splitting grin on his face.

“Don’t call me that.” 

Both leaning in, they feel the ghost of a kiss on each other’s lips.

_ Delete  _

 

Eddie blinks and Richie is gone. He feels incredibly cold and there is a strong draft wafting throughout the room.

As he looks around his apartment, he soon realizes all of his furniture is gone too. Even the carpets have been lifted, leaving hardwood under his bare feet.

Another memory has been wiped away. Eddie is starting to panic, the true meaning of his and Richie’s situation coming to a head. They were running out of time. Soon, this was all going to be gone.

Eddie hears the ghostly howl of wind from outside the living room window. It is pitch black out.

Eddie takes a huge breath in, letting his voice escape his mouth with as much force as possible.

“I WANT TO CALL IT OFF! Do you hear me?!” Eddie cups the sides of his mouth, shrieking up into the vacant ceiling.

“I said I want to call it off! Please! Fuck, please!” He heaves a few more heavy breathes. “Just stop.” 

He continues to yell into the void, desperate for anyone to hear him.

* * *

 

 

Beverly and Ben are holding hands, both tugging and pulling on each other’s arms back and forth. It is a silly little dance they are doing, but neither of them seem to care. They both stand on either side of Eddie’s sleeping body, his calls for help going unheard by the unaware technicians. 

_ Six Different Ways _ plays loudly out of Eddie’s record player. They had flipped through his decently sized vinyl collection and settled on  _ The Cure. _

At this point the Erasure is the last thing on their mind. The room is clouded with smoke from them finishing their joint. Eddie’s whiskey bottle lays empty on the ground beside them.

Bev thinks this has to be one of the best nights of her life. 

Ben knows this is the best night of his.

 

* * *

Just when Eddie thinks that he is going to trapped inside of this vacant house forever, he begins watching the dark corners of his house slowly begin to grow weeds. Grass, flowers, and bushes all appear before him, covering his feet and consuming the floors of his home. 

Before he knows it, the walls of his apartment fall away to reveal a beautiful blue sky with adorable white clouds. The sound of cicadas fills his ears and the heat of the sun feels revitalizing on his chilled skin.

He is still shirtless, only now he is sitting in a small tent in the middle of the woods. Any sign of his empty apartment has completely vanished into the shrubbery and trees. The tent door is unzipped and he is sitting in its doorway, the smell of campfire and pine filling his nose.

This was Eddie’s first ever camping trip. His mother had never taken him, and the few times that Mike and Stan had invited him to join them on their forest-filled adventures, he was already pretty set in stone that camping (and the wilderness in general) was not for him. That, and the fact that he knew Stan would be spending a majority of his time bird watching while Mike would tear up over each new insect and flower he stumbled upon.

No thank you. 

It took Richie two full weeks of begging, two years worth of birthday wishes, and one very convincing blow job to finally get him out here. 

In the middle of fucking nowhere.

It wasn’t that Eddie didn’t enjoy the scenery- or even just the peace and quiet. It was just that he was utterly and completely out of his element. Like right now, for example. Richie had planned this trip with the full intention of not showering.  _ For five days.  _ Eddie had gone one night without one, and here he was, sitting naked inside of his tent with a cold washcloth and a bottle of Dove hand soap. A hobo bath was still a bath, he supposed. 

Richie had disappear into the woods almost an hour ago, clad in nothing but a pair of white briefs and sandals. He hadn’t bothered to tell Eddie, so Eddie had woken up completely alone inside of their two-person tent. It was the crack of dawn. Where the hell did he go?

Just as Eddie was about to get dressed and go looking for him, Richie reappeared. 

Still nearly naked, but now adorning a guitar strapped around his neck. 

“Where the hell did y-” Eddie had no idea where Richie had hidden his guitar, but the question suddenly went frozen inside of Eddie’s throat.

Richie’s dark hair had become wildly frizzy and ridiculous in his sleep. It was twice its normal size. While it should of made him look ridiculous, to Eddie he looked simply breathtaking. The lushness of the mossy woods and thick forestry framing Richie’s beautiful body made Eddie hold back a whimper. 

Richie was quiet a skinny man, and while he had toned and firm arms, his small belly had the slightest bit of a pouch. Eddie had watched Richie’s tummy gain weight as their relationship progressed. It was as if Richie hadn’t eaten properly before he and Mike and Stan had started to cook his meals for him. The sight of the roundness of his belly made Eddie’s heart feel warm and the heat spread across his whole body.

He doesn’t think he has seen a prettier sight. He is speechless. Then, as if he were trying to make Eddie break down entirely, Richie begins to strum his guitar in a happy and light tune. Eddie has heard this song before.

_ “In the middle of the night, _

_ In the middle of the night I call your name. _

_ Oh, Spaghettio. Oh, Spaghettio. _

_ My love will turn you on.” _

Eddie’s adoration slowly morphs into hilarity (with a pinch of annoyance at the nickname, of course). 

As Richie continues to serenade him, he is smiling a huge cheeky kind of smile that just can’t be controlled. You can tell Richie is proud of his clever replacement for the word ‘Yoko’ because he can’t stop winking and bobbing his head as he enthusiastically strums through the line.

Richie is right in front of him now, and as he sings the next verse Eddie shakes his head in disbelief. Richie does a flirtatious dance, shaking his ass and shimmying his shoulders at Eddie.

_ “In the middle of a bath, _

_ In the middle of a bath I call your name. _

_ Oh, Spaghettio! Oh, Spaghettio! _

_ My love will turn you on. _

_ My looooove wiiiiiillll tuuuurn youuuuu oonnnn!” _

Eddie feels heat build in his belly as Richie bends down on to his knees in front of him, finishing up the song with a cute little flourish on the strings. It always perplexed Eddie how his annoyance with Richie’s antics could so quickly turn to arousal.

Not only was Richie beautiful, but he also wasn’t afraid  _ not _ to be. He wasn’t afraid of making a fool of himself, to look like a complete dork in front of Eddie. It was that amount of confidence that Richie excudes that really really got Eddie going. 

Eddie stares at him as the song ends, hunger heavy in his eyes. He could feel his mouth water. Richie sets down his guitar and sits in the dirt in front of their tent. He shares Eddie’s pupil-blown gaze and then cracks another gorgeous smile.

“I remember what happened after I sang that.” Richie says, a teasing tone dripping off his voice.

“Yeah, as soon as I did this, you pulled me into the tent and we fucked like  _ animals. _ ” Richie sighs at the memory. “God, you’re so fucking cute.”

At that, Eddie snaps out of his trance. He quickly stands up and out of the tent, slipping on a pair of galoshes and grabbing Richie’s hand. 

“Spaghetti, why can’t we just do that instead? You know you want to.” Richie winks.

A little flustered from being half hard and getting increasingly annoyed, Eddie grunts in exasperation.

“Because we need to get the fuck out of here before I lose this too!” Eddie tugs on Richie’s arm aggressively, sending them both into a jog deeper within the woods.

“Eddie, where are you taking us? We never went off the trail on this trip, you have no idea where you’re going.” Richie says, trying his best to keep pace with Eddie’s small and quick strides. 

“You have any better ideas? How do I get them to stop?!” Eddie says, voice raising in pitch as his panic slowly climbs.

Richie halts them to a stop, pulling Eddie down to sit on a stump. Eddie is trying his best to keep his breathing in order. Richie gives him a second to catch up with his thoughts.

“I could hear them before. In other memories of us. Clear as day.” Eddie cranes his neck so he can look at Richie, who is still standing high above him. “Why can’t they hear me?”

“Well, Eds… I don’t know. Your guess is as good as mine. Maybe try something different?” Richie replies.

“Something different? Like what?”

“Have you tried yelling?”

“Yes, I have tried yelling! Of course I have! What, do you think I have been trying to get their attention by muttering to myself? Like you always do? You can’t even spend two minutes without having to say some shit.” Eddie yells, pointing a small finger at Richie. 

“Hey, don’t use this to air out our dirty laundry, okay? We can bicker about my loud mouth and your sassy ass when we get home.” Richie says, deadpan with a hint of fondness. Richie can’t help but let a smile slide onto his face. He missed their bickering. Their constant flirtatious dynamic. 

Eddie quiets pretty much immediately, having enough nerve to let that make him feel bashful. A blush rises on his cheeks and he turns away from Richie, hoping he doesn’t see it.

“I saw the blush. You can’t hide from me, Eds.” Richie says as he tosses Eddie’s curls. 

They both go quiet for a moment, considering what to do. As the seconds tick by, they both feel the urgency of their time constraint pressing in on them. 

“I have an idea. It’s probably a stupid idea, but at least it’s an idea.” Richie says urgently, picking Eddie up off of the stump (“Put me down, Trashmouth!”) and sitting him on the forest floor.

“Richie, what are y- Hey! At least tell me what you’re doing!” Eddie hisses, hating the feeling of dirt and pine scratch at his bare back. He wiggles around, trying to sit himself back up off of the ground.

“Just trust me.” Is all Richie says. His voice is calm and serious. Eddie stares into his eyes, and slowly nods. 

“Okay.” Eddie lays back down. “I trust you.”

“Alright. Eds, this is going to be really weird, but bare with me.” At that, Richie brings both of his thumbs and pointer fingers to rest on the tops and bottoms of Eddie’s eyelids. He thrusts both eyelids open, Eddie’s eyeballs immediately feeling itchy and dry.

But… The longer Richie keeps his eyes plastered open… He sees something. 

The image is blurry, and the music is soft, but slowly everything comes into view.

Eddie can see his own sleeping body. He is covered by a thin blanket. As his eyes scan around the room quickly, he can see the silhouettes of two people. They are talking loudly, and he can hear a record play loudly. The needle skips every few seconds. 

Eddie gasps, gripping Richie’s wrists and pulling his hands away.

“I saw them!” Eddie turns to Richie, pulling him into a firm hug. “You’re a genius!” Richie doesn’t have time to hug him back before Eddie lays back down. 

“Eddie, what did you see?”

“Come on, Rich, we need to try it again!” Eddie says urgent, grabbing Richie’s hands and placing them on either side of his face.

Sighing, Richie is about to open both of his eyes back wide when everything around them goes black, as if someone had turned off the lights.

_ Delete _

 

Almost as quickly as they went out, the lights came back on.

Eddie and Richie are standing in a new scene together. Beneath them are black and white checkered floors and the sounds of multiple buzzing machines fills the air of the room.

They are in a tattoo shop. 

For their first anniversary, Eddie and Richie had agreed that they would pay for each other’s first tattoos. The catch: Neither of them got to know what the other decided on getting. 

Eddie looks down at his slightly stinging forearm. He had gotten a fairly small tattoo, right below his ditch. It was of a paintbrush and pencil, crossing each other in the shape of an X. Eddie thought it suited him, and he loved that he permanently got a piece of art representing his love for it. 

The paint brush’s tip was dripping in red paint. The exact same pigment of Richie’s favorite color of lipstick.

Not that Eddie was going to let Richie know that. He blushes as he stares at his new ink, almost snickering at his little love secret. 

Richie then walks up to him, smiling the biggest and most devious grin that Eddie had yet to see plastered on his face. Eddie knew he was in for some Richie bullshit.

“Are you all done?” Eddie says, eyebrows raised in questioning, not being able to help but share the excited energy that radiated off of Richie.

“I’m all done! Want to see what you’re paying for, Eds?”

“I don’t know, Rich, do-” Before Eddie can even finish his sentence, Richie swiftly lifts up his shirt off of his chest. 

What Eddie sees makes his jaw drop nearly to the floor.

“IS THAT A BOWL OF SPAGHETTI?” Eddie yells. And the tattoo is just that. 

Right below Richie’s left pec, on the top of his ribs, there is a freshly tattooed bowl of spaghetti. The colors are vibrant and the lines are thick and even. It is a great tattoo, all things considered. 

Richie’s grin grows somehow even  _ larger _ , his eyes nearly closed from the power of his smile. 

“Do you like it?” 

“Do I like it?! Richie!” Eddie can’t seem to be able to hold back his laughter. “Its spaghetti!”

“Yeah, for my little Spaghetti.” Richie says, head high in the air, looking down at Eddie over his nose. Richie’s face slowly starts to darken a deep red. A blush. 

Richie had gotten a tattoo for Eddie, and Eddie’s reaction was making him embarrassed.

Eddie’s heart almost imploded.

“I’m flattered, baby, but also MORTIFIED. Richie, is this your version of a couples tattoo?!” Eddie asks, letting a few giggles escape out of his mouth.

“No! Spaghetti is just my favorite food. Duh.” Richie says, mercilessly handsome as he tries to write off his devotion of love into a joke. 

“You don’t have to lie to me, Richie. Your favorite food is sushi.” Eddie says knowingly, fondness pouring out of his eyes and smile.

“Well then…” Richie slowly puts his shirt back on. 

“You’re my favorite food then, Eds. My Spaghetti Man.” As Richie says this, his voice lowers and hints at a deeper meaning. He licks his lips.

Eddie just smirks back up at him as he gets a red blush, so dark it nearly matches Richie’s.

Richie lifts his hand and cups Eddie’s cheek. It feels hot beneath his fingers. Slowly, ever so gently, Richie presses his lips against Eddie’s.

Eddie’s stomach gives a small flutter. He hears a small sigh come from Richie. They pull away slowly, looking deeply into each other’s eyes.

“I love it, you idiot.” 

Just as they are about to go in for another peck, the lights in the tattoo shop begin to flicker.

The buzzing of the machines stop. Suddenly, they are completely alone, the building evacuated of any life.

Richie’s eyes grow wide as he sees each piece of furniture and floor tile begin to disintegrate and disappear.

“Eddie, hurry! Take us somewhere else! Before they delete me again!” Richie’s voice is high and strained, his fear evident in his eyes.

“How?! What do I do?!” Eddie yells, the expanse of darkness almost consuming them.

“Hide us! Take us to another memory! Please don’t lose me, Eds. Please.” They grip each other’s hand fiercely, squeezing so hard their fingers ache. 

In a complete panic, nearly hyperventilating, Eddie takes them to the first memory he can think of.

 

The sun shines hot above him. The air is humid with Summer heat. 

Eddie’s mom had left the park bench to go to the bathroom. She hasn’t been back for nearly ten minutes. A very, very long time in kid minutes.

Eddie is seen wearing tiny red shorts and a white polo shirt. He sports a small fanny pack and a watch that is far too large for his small wrist. 

Eddie is five years old and this is the first time that his mom has taken him out of the house since his father died. Eddie was extremely excited, but he couldn’t shake what his mother had started, only recently, saying to him.

“Stay away from the grass, Eddie. You know how it makes your allergies act up. I don’t want to take you to the hospital.”

“Don’t touch your face after you have played on the park equipment. You don’t know what kind of bacteria lives on them. You could get a sickness.”

Eddie’s mom had never told him about germs like these before. They sounded scary. Life threatening.

Just as Sonia Kaspbrak walked out of Eddie’s line of vision, he had accidently rubbed his eye. Right after he had played on the monkey bars.

Five year old Eddie Kaspbrak was now having his first panic attack. 

It felt as if the air was being sucked out of his lungs by a vacuum. His heart was pounding in his ears, and the tears that were falling were blinding him from seeing clearly. He felt as if he was being closed in on, four invisible walls forcing him into a cramped box. He was completely incoherent and in a complete anxious spiral into darkness.

All of a sudden, Eddie feels a small hand pat his back.

“You’re okay, Eds. You’re okay.” He hears a young voice say. “I got you.”

He feels a pair of hands grip his waist and unzip his fanny pack. Softly. his inhaler is being brought to his lips. Eddie just hugs himself and opens his mouth. 

The hands then hold the back of his head and press on the inhaler, making sure that the medicine goes into Eddie’s mouth. 

Eddie takes a few deep breaths and rubs his eyes, trying to clear the tears from his vision.

A small eight year old boy stands in front of him. He adorns a poofy afro of curls and extremely large coke-bottle glasses. His eyes looks ridiculously large and his buck teeth poke out under his top lip.

Eddie giggles a little bit at the funny looking boy. He wipes a few tears off of his face.

“Thanks, Richie.” Eddie whispers, sliding his small hand into the other boy’s.

“Of course, Eds. I still have a few of your inhalers at my house. I found one in a pair of pants the other day. I was so confused. I guess I forgot to give them to the people at Lunac.” Tiny Richie rambles, his voice small and nasally. It reminds Eddie of a babbling infant. 

“You’re so cute as a kid, Richie. I’ve never seen any pictures of you as a boy.” Eddie says, voice just as young and silly.

Richie gives him a huge crooked-toothed grin. His eyes falls to his feet. Childhood bashfulness warms his heart.

“Think we’re safe here?” Richie asks, recalling why they came into this memory in the first place.

“Maybe. For now.” Eddie says, nudging Richie’s shoulder. “Want to go play on the swings?”

Richie laughs a bubbly and hiccupy type of laugh. He even gives a good little snort at the end.

“Sure, Eds. Let’s go play on the swings.”

Before Richie can lead them across the playground, Eddie pulls on his hand to stop him.

“I wish I knew you when I was a kid, Rich.” Eddie says earnestly. His eyes are still glimmering from his tears.

“Now you do, I guess.” Richie says sweetly. He hands Eddie back his inhaler and pinches his cheeks. 

“And you’re pretty cute yourself, Eddie Spaghetti. Cute, cute, _ cute. _ ”

Eddie immediately reached out his hand and gives one of Richie's many curls a hard tug. 

"Don't call me that, Trashmouth!" Eddie's little voice calls as he sprints towards the swingset.

"You know you love it, Spaghetti Head!"

 

* * *

Ben and Beverly are sharing a heated kiss. 

The last of their clothing is splayed out on the floor around them. They are laying on the couch now, having sobered up from their dancing and tom foolery. 

Just as Ben is about to trail a few kisses down her neck, there is a piercing ring that emits from the machine beside Eddie.

The alarm continues to go off and a red light begins flashing on the screen.

Ben jumps off of Beverly, bumping his shin on the coffee table, and throws his pair of underwear back on. 

“Shit, shit, shit!” Ben exclaims, pressing on three keys on the keyboard rapidly. He clicks a small switch on the monitor off and back on again, before hitting the side of the machine once. 

“What is happening, Ben? What’s wrong?” Bev says, holding her breasts and covering her nipples as she walks over.

“I don’t know, this has never happened before!” Ben says, looking at Beverly frantically. 

“What’s never happened before? Tell me so I can help you!” She replies urgently, turning to search for her clothes.

“I lost him! He’s gone. He’s off the grid.” Ben says, hardly believing what he is saying. “He isn’t in the part of his brain he should be in. He left. I lost him.” 

It is quiet for a few moments. Ben thinks back on the last few hours of bliss. Him and Beverly, just enjoying each other’s company. Talking about their favorite shows, listening to some of their favorite records on Eddie’s record player. 

Making love.

And now it had to be soiled by  _ this. _ Why did this have to happen? On a night like this?  _ This night?! _

Just as Ben’s thoughts begin spiral into panic, Bev says the last thing that Ben would want to hear.

 

“I’m going to call Bill.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> UH OH NOT BIG BILL  
> I'm so happy our boys finally communicated. I felt like I was straight up dying whenever either of them were being petty lil buh holes.  
> The next few chapters are what I have been excited about! We are finally getting into the chunk of the story that actually inspired me to want to write this fic in the first place. I'm fuckn pumped!
> 
> Same time next week?
> 
> (As always, leave me a lil critique and come hang w me on tumblr! @reddieloserz )


	5. Lucid

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for Violence and Light Gore
> 
> Richie's Song: Dancing Queen - ABBA

The loud ringing of a landline phone fills the silence of a dark room. 

Bill Denbrough clicks on the lamp on his bedside table and a yellow light fills his master bedroom. His wife, Audra, stirs behind him and then stills again. Clearing his throat and sitting up against his headboard, he quickly picks up the telephone.

“Denbrough residence.”

“Dr. Denbrough. It’s Beverly, Beverly Marsh.” Beverly's tone is tense and upset. 

The sound of the woman’s voice makes Audra slowly peel her eyes open, leaning in slightly so she can hear more clearly. She tries her best to keep still, hoping that Bill hasn’t realized she is awake.

Bill eyes widen immediately, and he glances over his shoulder at Audra quickly. Convinced that she has not awoken, he holds the phone closer to his mouth.

“Beverly, what are you doing calling at this hour? I’m asleep with my wife.” He says in a rushed, almost breathless tone. Guilt crawls up his throat like a like a frantic snake. 

“I’m at a client’s home, with technician Ben Hanscom, we are having some major issues here-”

“What are you doing with Hanscom? Why are you at a client’s home?!” Bill asks, already lifting himself out of bed to find his jacket. 

“I-I just wanted to get more up close and personal with the procedure, Bill. You know how I have always been increasingly interested in your work… I was just curious and Ben invited me to-” Beverly’s rambling get cut off calmly by Bill’s strong voice, now louder and more stern.

“Beverly, you need to go home. Give me the name of the client and I will be there shortly to assist Ben. You shouldn’t be there, only technicians should ever be in the client’s space. You know this, Bev.” Bill cringes as his use of the nickname slips out of his mouth. He finds his shoes and are tieing them sloppily, the phone smooshed in between his shoulder and cheek.

“It is Edward Kaspbrak. I’m… I’m sorry, Bill. I was just curious.”

“Just…” Bill releases a weighted sigh. “Tell Ben I’ll be there in a few minutes. Goodbye, Beverly.” He quickly ends the call, grabbing his keys off of his dresser and leaving the room. 

Audra, all the while, lays there disturbed and suspicious. She had been listening to the conversation closely and is unhappy with its contents. She turns off the side table light. 

 

* * *

 

Mike and Stan are standing in the doorway between their kitchen and living room. Richie’s unconscious body is wrapped tightly in a blanket, courtesy of Mike. The only sign of movement is the rise and fall of his shoulders. He has been asleep for about an hour now and Stan and Mike only moved once their own legs were sore and falling asleep. Richie seems to be peacefully dreaming, a small smile playing on his lips. 

Now that he can openly stare, Stan begins to notice the signs of fatigue written all over Richie’s face. There are deep bags hanging underneath his eyes. His hair is greasy from not showering. His clothes are wrinkled, indicating to Stan that he hasn’t changed out of them in a day or two. 

“He looks rough,” Stan concludes.

“Is it… Is it normal for someone to be this fucked up after that procedure? Is this normal?” Mike asks, a stress line wrinkling his forehead. 

“Honestly, I don’t think so.” Stan ponders. “I don’t think they would of had this kind of procedure legalized if they had people wandering around town looking for recollections of who they erased.”  

“Then what makes Richie so special? Did the procedure just not fully work?” 

Mike stares at Stan while Stan stares at Richie. Stan thinks Richie looks much better without that nervous and unhappy look on his face. He sees real beauty with Richie looking all relaxed and unknowing. Stan finally speaks up.

“I think its Eddie that is special. This poor guy never stood a chance.” Stan says seriously, gesturing to Richie. “Richie had no idea how deep things would get.”

“Yeah. You’re right. Eddie isn’t the kind of person that would let himself be forgotten that easily.” This makes Mike smile. Even after all of this, Mike feels like everything is going to be okay. 

Eddie is the one thing that brought them all together in the first place, after all. Of course he would be the thing to bring them back together again.

 

* * *

 

Eddie is standing in the bark chips with his arms crossed and one foot tapping impatiently. He had just hopped off of his swing after losing sight of Richie. He started looking around, looking under the play equipment, trying to see if maybe he ran into the open soccer field.

But no. No, instead, Richie was 9 feet up in the air. He had climbed the swing set structures and he now sits atop one of them, butt hardly fitting on top of the tower. He was sitting above Eddie while he was swinging the whole time. 

Of course. This is exactly how little Richie would act, in Eddie’s opinion.

“Richie, you are really freaking me out! Get down before you kill yourself!” Eddie hollers, waving his arms around, his voice high and stressed.

“No! Nuh uh!” Richie chuckles. “You’re going to have to come up and make me!” He challenges. 

Eddie just crosses his arms again.

“Looks like this little Spaghetti was cooked with some CHICKEN! Bagock!” Richie bends his arms to mimic the flapping of wings as he continues with his chicken calls.

Eddie’s little face gets nearly red with anger.

“Oh, that’s it you little shit!” Eddie has a little lisp on the curse word. He clicks his fanny pack, throwing it far to the side and begins tucking in his polo shirt. 

“You are going to get it, Tozier!” Eddie yells defiantly, pointing a tiny finger up in the sky at Richie. 

 

* * *

 

Ben and Beverly hear a light knock on Eddie’s front door. They had done a fairly good job at cleaning up, even leaving a window open for the smell of weed to clear from the air. Bev sprayed one more puff of air freshener before Ben finally opens the door.

Bill enters quickly, glancing around the room. You can tell he is trying to assess the situation before he needs to answer any questions. He deliberately avoids Beverly’s gaze. Bill is fairly taller than both of them, and the fact that he had a particularly sour expression on his face made him look all the more imposing.

“So. Tell me what happened, Ben.” Bill finally says, a look of subtle disappointment on his features.

“I was uh, I was away from the monitor when Mr. Kaspbrak went off the radar.” Ben admits guiltily. 

“Off the radar?” Bill repeats. This is one of his many fears when performing this procedure. Sometimes, just like with dreaming, the person getting the procedure done can become lucid. This enables them to walk freely throughout their memories. 

It is very, very bad news for the technician. 

“Here, let me get your coat, Bill.” Beverly insists, already tugging his lapels and sliding his jacket off of his shoulders. Bill just lets her do as she will, and he doesn’t miss the hard expression Ben has as she does so.

Ben lets out a long-winded sigh. He not only feels pretty fucking shitty about having to bring Bill all the way here, but also that it seems he can’t do his own damn job or get the girl the way that Big Bill can. 

“He is hooked up over here, Bill. And he doesn’t seem to be doing so hot. Whenever a memory is depleted, he has an odd, kind of pained expression on his face. Do you think there could be something wrong?” Ben motions for Bill to follow him, sitting down in front of the monitor.

Bill pulls up a chair next to him, just staring at the large WARNING text across the screen of the monitor. Ben is going to be learning something new today, Bill guesses.

“He is lucid. He is probably shuffling through his memories as we speak. We need to get him back on track and on the map of memories he wants deleted.” Bill explains. Ben just nods slowly, taking in the new information. 

Bill quickly goes to work, ignoring Beverly when she gets him a glass of water and pats his shoulder. He nearly immediately locates Eddie, zeroing in on the area of the brain he has fled to.

“Aha! There he is.” Bill points to a small, foggy cloud that is covering a fragment of Eddie’s brain.  

“What is he doing all the way over there?” Ben inquires, writing down several notes in a notepad. Bill only shrugs.

“Doesn’t matter. As long as he have him, we can get the procedure back on track.”

With a few more clicks of the keys, the red WARNING screen vanishes and the machine goes back to working normally.  

 

* * *

Just as Eddie’s attempt at climbing finally reaches Richie, his little hand clings hard on to the end of Richie’s jeans.

“You look petrified, Eds! You didn’t really have to come all the way up here…” Richie grins down at him.

“Shut your trashmouth, Trashmouth! I’m freaking out! I’m never going to get down!” Eddie’s childish voice becomes more and more high pitched as he looks down. 

Suddenly, Sonia Kaspbrak comes back from wherever she had gone. The childhood memory version of her is incredibly large and dominating. Her face is red with the rash of anger.

“Edward Kaspbrak, you get down from there! Get down here  _ immediately!” _ She yells, coming closer with every passing second.

Richie laughs obnoxiously. “That’s your mom? That’s who I’ve said I’ve been doing all these years?”

“Shut up, Richie!”

Suddenly, Eddie is gripped harshly by his ankle. His mother has him in a firm grasp. 

“Richie, help!” Eddie cries, and Richie clings to the small arm that is latched to his leg. 

“I gotcha, Eds! Don’t let go!”

After a moment of struggle, Sonia finally pulls him down off of the play equipment. Instead of falling into the bark chips-

  
  


They are both thrown down on to his bed.  

They are laying together in bed after a night of clubbing. This is one of the first nights that Eddie had let Richie come over to his apartment. Richie is kissing him all over in hot and heavy sucks and smacks. He feels his dick hard against Richie’s thigh. He moans Richie’s name, letting out soft little gasps as Richie softly ruts against his stomach.

Then, as they make eye contact with each other, they slowly pull apart. They begin to cool down. As their wits return to them, they sigh.

Richie closes his eyes. “Fuck.”

Eddie covers his mouth, breathing heavy, as he looks around the familiar scene of his apartment.

“They found us.” He says in horror, muffled by his hand.

Richie opens his eyes.

 

_ Delete _

  
  


Eddie and Richie are immediately transformed into a new scene. The thought of this memory alone used to make Eddie’s heart ache. This might of been the moment that he knew Richie had changed him forever. There was no going back after this.

They are both nestled under a quilt on the floor. It was a quilt that Richie has had since he was a young child. He had brought it over to Eddie’s apartment when they started to spend nearly every night together. He says he sleeps the best when he has it with him. His mother had made it for him. He says he misses her all of the time. 

They are facing each other, knees touching and noses brushing each other. They have little stars in their eyes as they gaze at each other, their relationship blooming and growing with every passing second. Eddie is playing with Richie’s curls, twirling them around his fingers, giving them playful pulls. Eddie loves tugging on them because everytime he does Richie blinks automatically. It is as cute as it is funny. 

“You know, when I was younger, kids at school would call me Bucky Beaver.” Richie says, a soft chuckle escaping his lips. 

Eddie smiles at this. Richie’s teeth are seemingly perfect from afar, but once you got up close, you could easily see a slight overbite in Richie’s smile. As time has gone on, Eddie also saw how Richie’s teeth had shifted so that his two front teeth were more prominent. They just out just the littlest bit. Even though Richie had had teenage braces, they still couldn’t stop the shifting that was to happen. Whenever Richie was relaxed or asleep, Eddie would always notice those two teeth peaking out, resting on his bottom lip. Eddie loved them.

“I was a funny looking kid. I had a pretty loud mouth, too. I would of definitely made fun of me.” Richie continues quietly.

“That doesn’t mean you deserved it, Rich.”

“Maybe it does.” 

Eddie remains quiet, waiting for Richie elaborate.

“I remember when I had turned around 14, I had asked a girl is she wanted to go to some dance with me. She laughed and said she would never want to be seen with a four-eyed beaver.” Richie chuckles again hallowly. 

“Oh, Richie…” Eddie sighs, his heart hurting at the image of a young Richie being rejected in the harshest of ways. 

“No, it’s okay. You don’t have to feel bad. It doesn’t bother me anymore. Kids are just horrible.” Richie pauses, and Eddie can see him debating whether or not he wanted to continue. “But… I remember after that day. When I went back home…” Richie’s voice catches in his throat. 

Eddie silently pets his face, lightly scratching the beginning of Richie’s beard. He slowly looks up into Richie’s eyes, but Richie is looking past him. In another place. In another time.

“I went home and… I had this stuffed animal. It was a beaver.” Richie laughs fully this time, but there is no humor in it. “I remember taking it and placing it on my bed. I just… Started yelling at it. I couldn’t stop just screaming. I got up in its face,I remember how hot my face was. I must had looked like such a psychopath.” Richie finally looks back at Eddie.

“What were you saying to it?” Eddie was taking this extremely seriously. Even though Richie was trying to make light of it, it wasn’t funny to Eddie. He wanted to know. 

“A lot of things.” Richie says easily. Then he contemplates for a moment before pressing on. “I couldn’t… control myself. A dam must have just broke. I remember saying ‘why can’t you be normal? Like all the other kids? Why are you so  _ ugly? _ ’”

A small tear begins to pool in the corner of Eddie’s eye. He just looks at Richie in empathy. 

“I remember just yelling ‘ugly, ugly, ugly. Why can’t you be normal?’ Poor beaver. I should of been arrested for animal abuse, you know?” Richie laughs for real this time, but there are unshed tears in his eyes now too. 

“You aren’t normal, Rich, that’s for sure…” Eddie begins. He is about to just try to tease Richie and lighten the mood. Anything to get that painful look off of his face. But something in Eddie’s chest tightens, and he stops himself.

“But you’re so beautiful, Richie. You are the prettiest thing I have ever seen.”

Richie just closes his eyes at that. A small smile is tugging on his lips but his eyebrows furrowed together in an extremely pained expression.

“Really?” Richie whispers, completely open, naked, and vulnerable in Eddie’s hands. “Are you sure? Are you sure I’m not ugly? Am I ugly, Eds? Am I ugly?” Richie rambles, tears finally falling.

“No, Chee… You’re pretty. You’re pretty…” Eddie crawls on top of him, quilt still blanketing over both of their bodies. “You’re so beautiful, Rich. Just beautiful. Beautiful…”

Eddie hunches down to give Richie a searing kiss. The pained expression on Richie’s face deepens, and he lets a small sob slip out in between their lips.

Eddie just continues to kiss and kiss him, over and over. Richie’s tears wet Eddie’s cheeks. Eddie’s long lashes tickle Richie’s face.

“So pretty, so perfect. You’re everything, Richie. You’re everything.”

Their kisses become more and more needy. Richie whines in the back of his throat, enveloping Eddie in his long arms. Eddie replies with finally sliding his tongue into Richie’s mouth, slowly coaxing his lips open and wrapping Richie in an open-hearted kiss. 

They part for a breath.

“I love you, Eddie.”

Eddie’s heart leaps into his throat. His eyes grow wide, and he can’t stop staring into Richie’s soft gaze. This is the first time Richie has said it. Before Eddie can reply with his own feelings, Richie flips them over so that he is on top. Richie is very heavy, and it is almost painful to have him sitting on Eddie’s stomach, but Eddie doesn’t dare move. He stares up at Richie like he just came down from Heaven, a flawed angel.

“I love you, I love you, I love you....” Richie is spreading kisses all over Eddie’s little head and shoulders. They continue to simply fawn over each other. 

So much time passes. Neither of them move from their position. They alternate between kissing and whispering the sweetest of words. 

“You were made for me, Eds…”

“No one else needs to know how beautiful you are. You are mine. I have you now. I have you.”

“Thank you for saving me, Spaghetti. You are always saving me.”

“I love you, Richie. I’ve always loved you.”

It feels like such a weight has lifted out of Richie’s body now that he has finally said it. He can’t remember the last time he got to utter that phrase to anybody. Maybe ten years ago. To his mother. Her undying affection for him is something he always carried with him. He needed so badly to express it. He was so lucky to have found Eddie. 

They continue to fawn over each other. Eddie grips him in an embrace so hard he can hardly breathe.

“Please let me keep this one. Please. Just this one. That’s all.” Eddie breathes out, tears spilling over his cheeks.

_ Delete _

 

 

Eddie opens his eyes. Richie is gone. He sits in an empty room. Darkness pools all around him.

“No, no, no! NO!” Eddie sits up, ripping the quilt off of him, glancing all around.  _ Where did Richie go? _

“Not this one. Not this one. I can’t lose this one. Please. It is the only thing I have. Please.” Eddie is on his hands and knees, hands clasped together. It is like he is praying a pitiful prayer. There is no God. There is no one listening. 

The damage is already done.

Eddie is pushed into a whirlwind, the air being knocked out of his lungs.

 

Eddie steps out of his bathroom and into the living room, giving a dramatic pose. One hand on the wall and lifting his leg in the air, he is clad in a white Princess Leia dress. He has a little big of blush and lip gloss on, his hair long and wild.  

Richie looks up from his comic book when he hears Eddie’s hand thump the wall, and immediately gasps in disbelief. He slowly puts his book down on the coffee table and looks up at the ceiling. Head resting on the neck of the couch, he lays limp.

“God? Are you really there? Have you really been listening to my prayers, after all these years?” 

Eddie laughs and waves his hands around. “Hello! I’m right here! Aren’t you going to tell me how much the white suits me?” Eddie gives a smug little smirk and flashes Richie his bare butt.

“Oh, Eds, you look good enough to eat.” Richie gives a huge sigh. “I think I’ve fucking died and gone to heaven. You look like a fucking space angel.” Eddie knew how much Richie loved Star Wars, but not this much. He does another little spin, a huge grin plastered to his face. He’s pretty proud of himself. 

“Get your little ass over here right now!” Richie says, beckoning Eddie over with his large hands.

Eddie runs over and jumps into his lap, straddling him, giving a little shriek and giggle.  

“Help me, Obi Wan Kenobi. You’re my only hope.” Eddie says kissing Richie’s jaw.

“Ooh no, I’m not Obi Wan. I’m Han Solo and you know it.” Richie laughs, gripping Eddie’s hips.

Eddie scratches Richie’s slightly hairy chest lightly and replies, “I think you’re more like Chewbacca.” 

“Oh shut up, you little shit.” Richie quiets his laughter with a deep kiss, tossing Eddie on to the couch on his back. 

“I love you.” Eddie says, getting ravaged by Richie’s bites and kisses.

“I know.”

_ Delete _

 

Richie’s usually quiet apartment is filled with an extremely loud and poor rendition of ABBA as Richie loudly bangs on his piano and busting out the lyrics.

_ “You can dance, you can jive! Having the time of your life! Ooh, See that girl, Watch that scene, Dig in the dancing queen!” _

Richie is in his underwear and stomping his foot in time with the music. He keeps repeating that same song over and over again, his piano painfully loud. He was sure his neighbors were pissed beyond belief. He almost couldn’t breathe with the effort he was putting into his performance, but he couldn’t stop either. His smile was hurting his cheeks, but he had a dancing queen he was waiting for to enter. 

_ “With a bit of rock music, Everything is fine. You’re in the mood for a dance! And when you get that chance…”  _

As he continues to repeat the song and tune again, Eddie slams open the door. He is also clad only in his tightie-whities, but he a huge bubblegum pink beehive wig on. They had seen it sitting in a window as they walked down Main St, and Richie had without a word walked in and purchased it.

Eddie runs in and flings himself on to the bed, jumping up and down. They both are being incredibly loud, but the hilarity of the situation is just making them both laugh louder.

_ “You are the dancing queen! Young and sweet, only seventeen! Dancing Queen, feel the beat from the tambourine!” _

Eddie joins him in singing the next line as he stops jumping and falls backwards onto the bed, kicking his legs in the air and waving his arms in the air to the tune of the song. Eddie is thrashing around like a maniac, face and chest red with lack of air from laughing. 

Richie is surprised by Eddie’s exuberance, and he finds himself suddenly falling silent as he stops playing the piano. Just as Eddie sits up to ask him why he stopped, Richie just jumps on to the bed, making his squeak and lurch with Richie’s weight. 

They both finally flop down next to each other, catching their breath and letting little giggles continue to melt out of them as they calm down. Finally, Eddie looks into Richie’s smiling eyes.

“They just keep taking everything, Richie. A year of our life together is gone now.” Eddie is still breathing heavily, petting Richie’s hairy arm as he thinks out loud. 

Richie sits and ponders to himself in silence. He holds Eddie close, feeling the fragility of their time together. He feels a wave of guilt wash over his body. He wishes none of this ever happened. Wishes that he hadn’t of found Lunac. Wishes he was a different type of person.

“Maybe… Maybe you need to take us somewhere deeper, Eds. Deep down.” Richie begins to say. Eddie is about to object, say that they have already tried that, but Richie just continues. 

“Think hard on it. Don’t just take us to the first thing that pops into your head. Take us somewhere I really shouldn’t be. Somewhere you don’t even want to be.” Richie’s idea sounds full proof, but they now know they shouldn’t feel so confident. 

Eddie remains silent, his lips pressed into a hard line of concentration. As he scrapes his brain for the perfect memory to take them to, Richie begins to notice his room changing. The lights begin to flicker, and his vinyls on the wall begin shaking.

“Okay, sweetheart, you have to pick now. You have to choose. They are about to get rid of this too. You can’t lose me.” Richie says urgently, squeezing Eddie’s shoulders and forcing him to look him in the eye. “Take us somewhere. I trust you. Just hurry.”

Eddie takes them somewhere painful. 

 

It is pitch black out and the wind is pushing the tree’s branches around lightly. There is a soft light covering the streets. The Aladdin Theatre is still illuminated and shining brightly. The smell of Summer air fills Eddie’s nose and his heart gives a ping of nostalgia.

He can still see a young Stan and Mike at the end of the road. They both turn around and yell something at Eddie, but they are too far away and he misses what they say. The two young boys wave at Eddie one last time before they clasp hands and walk around the street corner.

Eddie just smiles to himself and kicks a small pebble before he sets off walking home. He knows he stayed out a bit later than he promised his mom, but she would most likely be asleep on her sofa chair and he was sure he wouldn’t get caught. Hopefully.

He was fourteen, his curfew should  _ at least _ be midnight, he thought. Mike and Stan were both allowed out until around then. It was hard being friends with them lately. He always felt like a third wheel now that they were being open about their like-like for each other. Eddie wishes he had that. A right-hand man. A favorite. A best friend, like they both had each other. 

As Eddie is lost in his thoughts of adolescent loneliness, he fails to hear the scuffling of feet behind him. Ripping Eddie right out of his thoughts, he gets whipped around and then shoved onto the hard pavement. He can’t but let out a hard  _ oof! _ when he lands on his behind. 

“Hey, queer.” A voice says casually. Eddie quickly looks up an immediately identifies his attacker. Henry fucking Bowers.

“Hey, asshole.” Eddie spits, quickly trying to hoist himself back up off the ground. Eddie has already experienced years of gay-oriented torment, so he wasn’t going to try too hard to fight it now. Queer, fairy, dyke. It was all the same to Eddie, and he didn’t give a shit anymore. A true punk rocker in his young age. 

Bowers immediately puts a large-booted foot to Eddie’s chest, pinning him down to the ground. Eddie tries in vain to shove Henry off, and he just gets a devious laugh thrown in his face. 

“Oh, don’t even try to get back up. I bet you love this, getting pushed around by a big bad man.” If Eddie had reflected more on this encounter, he may have thought that perhaps Henry Bowers was closeted in his sexuality too, like him, at this point. But Eddie didn’t give enough of a shit to consider it twice. 

“Oh, get over your god complex, Bowers. We both know know this is the only action you’ve ever gotten in your life.” Eddie retorts, venom spewing from his lips like viper. 

This gets Eddie a swift punch to the face. He hears the crunch of his nose before he feels it, watching as a large fist collides with his soft features. He tries to hold in the noise that rips out his throat, but he can’t stop it. He lets the sob come. 

“Oh, are you crying? Bet you don’t feel so fucking witty now.” Bowers lets two more punches fall on Eddie’s defenseless face before he spits next to his head, just barely missing Eddie’s hair.

Eddie isn’t known for being a tough and rough person. He is known for his weaknesses. He is known for his vulnerabilities, his anxieties. He lets his cries leave his body. He feels the hot tears wet his face. Even in all of his delicateness, he knew he was still strong than Henry. He knew that he was stronger than any of his weak-willed and brain dead bullies. Eddie knew. 

This is what Eddie will keep telling himself until he graduates high school. This is what Eddie will keep telling himself until he graduates college. His inner strength and his strong will were the only things that had kept him going.

Until Richie.

Just like that, like an answered prayer, Eddie sees a 17 year old Richie through blurry tear-filled eyes. He is wearing his pink biker jacket and his signature Doc Marten boots. Eddie can’t help but smile, and pain shoots up his face like a hot fire.

Eddie closes his eyes again and lies perfectly still on the cement. His body aches and his face is already bruising from his beating. All he hears are random scuffling and the sounds of more bone on bone. Richie is breathing heavily, and Bowers is shouting profanities at him. Richie says nothing, focused solely on hurting the younger boy until he eventually flees.

Even though this isn’t truly how this night ends, Eddie pretends that it is. That Richie had come to scare Henry away. That he wasn’t beaten senseless and left for dead. He lets himself believe that this is how they met. 

Richie saved him.

A few moment later he feels large hands lift his shoulders and cradle his bloodied face.

“Eds? Eds? Eddie, can you hear me? I’m going to pick you up, okay?” Richie immediately does so, scooping Eddie into his arms and holding him tightly. 

“You never told me this happened to you, Eddie. I had no idea. Why didn’t you ever want to talk about this?” Richie says, his voice light and unaccussing. “Why did you never tell me about that guy?” There were a lot of things that Eddie had kept from Richie. Maybe that was part of the reason why things didn’t work out between them. Eddie knew.

They have nowhere to go. Richie just keeps walking, hoping that Eddie is coherent enough to stay conscious. Eddie ignores all of his questions.

Eddie looks up at him again through swollen eyes and repeats something he has said before. 

“I wish I knew you when I was a kid, Rich.”

Before Richie can reply, Eddie takes them to a new memory. He goes somewhere even deeper, wanting to keep them hidden and safe inside of his mind. He tries to keep Richie’s past advice in mind. Richie had to be taken where he shouldn’t be. It was the only way to keep them safe.

Henry Bowers is here again. Only this time, they are children. Henry was always a very angry kid. He had a rage that Eddie had never experienced before. He was chaotic and vengeful, but at a young age, you could also see the hurt and loneliness he was battling. There was not a happy ending for a young Henry.

Henry’s friend Patrick currently had Eddie trapped. He held both of Eddie’s arms behind his back and was making Eddie watch Henry reload his Air Pistol. Eddie was sniffling. His little arms hurt. He afraid of what Henry was capable of and of what Patrick might do.

While Eddie was crying and asking for them to just let him go, his mom was probably wondering where he was, they just kept telling him to be quiet.

“Watch this, Kasprak. I’m going to teach you something. A little something about life.” Young Henry Bowers said. It was almost an exact reiteration of something Henry’s father had said to him. Mr. Bowers always had many life lessons to teach Henry. None of them left Henry the same as before. 

“What are you going to do to me?” Eddie cries. Henry just laughs.

“I’m not going to do anything to you. Just watch.” 

Eddie watches on in horror as Henry takes aim at a small black bird perched on a low tree branch. 

“No, don’t!” Eddie shrieks.

A gunfire rings in Eddie’s head. His ears ring. He is faintly aware of the soft thump of a small corpse falling to the ground.

Something so beautiful and free. Small and weak, taken advantage of, its life taken from it. Eddie couldn’t decide if he was thinking of the bird or his young soul.

The two other boys laugh joyously. The power that comes from death and killing surges through their bodies along with the adrenaline. Patrick finally releases Eddie’s arms and goes over to Henry to give him a firm high five. It was hard seeing two young boys represent all that was poison in humankind. The hunger for dominance over others. For pain. If only the young boys knew. 

Eddie gets up off the ground, grass staining his pants. He sprints to where he knows the bird once was and quickly walks up to its corpse.

The black bird is ugly and mangled. Blood pours out of its neck. Its feathers are ruffled. The once smooth wings are splayed and twisted. 

Without thinking of the consequences, blood, or germs, Eddie gently lifts the bird’s body into his arms. He weeps openly, his voice ragged and desperate. 

“Help me, someone, help me! Please! Help me!” He falls to his knees. 

This is the first time Eddie has experienced death. The first time he feels mortal loss.

A young Richie walks up slowly behind him. He lets a small hand fall to the top of Eddie’s back.

Eddie turns to him immediately, knowing exactly who it is going to be.

Eddie’s mouth hangs open like a gaping fish. His eyes are closed and he just lets himself weep. His soul feels as though is has experiences a physical open cut. Richie pets Eddie’s head, staring down at the bird.

“I’m so sorry you had to learn about death this way, Spaghetti. But I’m with you this time. It’s okay to cry.” Richie says knowingly, nodding his own head. Richie seems much more mature than Eddie had given him credit for in the past. Eddie feels his heart swell with equal amounts of love and hurt. 

“It prepared me for my dad’s passing later this year.” Eddie’s small voice emits through small sobs. “Its okay, its okay, its okay…” Eddie repeats the phrase like it is a sacred mantra. 

“Its okay, Eds. Its okay.” Richie agrees. “Its okay.”

“I feel so shameful, Richie. I am so ashamed. I should of never let this happen.” Eddie is talking about more than just the bird at this point. He means them too. Eddie feels responsible for all that had happened between them.

This was there love. This bird. It was dead and bloodied and broken. But still beautiful. Eddie was still happy that he had met it. That he had lived it. And he was happy to bury it with Richie, too. 

They slowly dig a shallow grave with nothing but their small hands. They both are covered in dirt and splinters. Mud has filled all of Eddie’s fingernails.

They place the bird in the ground and cover it back up together.

“It’s not your fault, Eddie.” Richie says quietly. He means more than just the bird, too. 

 

* * *

Bill, Ben and Bev are all saying their goodbyes.

“I hope that you have kind of understood all that I showed you tonight? I doubt he will continue to jump around.” Bill says, shrugging his jacket on. 

Ben quickly nods. “Yes. If he does, I’ll give you another call.” Ben desperately hoped that he wouldn’t have to.

Right as Bill puts a hand on Eddie’s doorknob to leave, the monitor rings another upset alarm. It is going absolutely haywire.

Ben quickly rushes over to it, and a red light illuminates his face. He looks over at Bill sympathetically.

“Looks like we are going to have a long night.” Bill sighs. “Here, Ben, I may as well actually teach you something new while we track him back down.”

“You really think that you can get him back again?”

“Absolutely. No doubt.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That Princess Leia moment was 100% inspired by belbys Reddie fanfiction called wonder violet. If you haven't read it yet, go do yourself a favor and do so! It is my all time favorite fic.
> 
> As always, leave me a little comment and come talk to me on tumblr! @reddieloserz  
> I know a lot happened in very little time this chapter, so if you have any questions, lets talk about it! <3


	6. Erasure

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it has been so long, guys. Thank you to all that have stuck with me! I hope you enjoy.

After the two small boys buried the black bird they sat on a log in front of its grave. Neither one said anything for a while. That was until Richie couldn’t hold his thoughts in anymore, in true Richie fashion.

“I don’t blame you for what happened to us, Eds. You have to stop blaming yourself.” Richie’s voice was sweet and high with youth, but his words carried the weight of a man who had matured beyond his years. 

“How can you  _ not  _ blame me, Richie?” Eddie replies. His voice is hollow, vacant. “I pushed you away. Again and again, I…” He lets a heavy pause harbor his sentence. 

“I wanted you to leave me. I wanted you to admit to me what I already knew.”

“Admit what, Eds?” Richie asks softly.

“That I’m unlovable.” Eddie feels fresh tears pool in his already sob-sore eyes. He turns to Richie, finally, and his eyes dances back and forth between the other boy’s. 

“That I’m impossible to love, that I am too far gone to be able to care for another person. That my mother succeeded in ruining that for me, like she ruined everything else!” 

“Eddie, Eddie,  _ stop _ it!” Richie cuts Eddie’s rambling short, putting both of his dirty hands on either side of Eddie’s face. Eddie struggles to turn away, to run from the vulnerability that Richie was exuding, but he can’t. 

“Look at me.” Eddie doesn’t move. “Eds, I said look at me.” Richie says lightly, with a coating of sterness. Richie runs his fingers softly through his hair, his palms slightly sweaty on Eddie’s cheeks.

Eddie kept his eyes squeezed shut while his head was turned away from Richie. After a few agonizing seconds, he relented and returned Richie’s gaze. 

Both men are suddenly their true ages. The clothes they wore in youth have disappeared and are replaced by their usual attire. Both look tired and are still clouded with dirt from the burial. Neither can bring themselves to speak up again.

But Eddie’s eyes had always been intensely expressive. While it took Richie nearly hours to express one idea, Eddie could simply grace Richie a glance and that one look would say it all. They were large orbs of honesty and sincerity. Richie never took himself as a con artist, but his expressions were to fool others. To mask what emotions he could. That was all the jokes and snide remarks were- masks. Even his large glasses were a tool for him to shield himself. 

Eddie wasn’t like that. His eyes showed Richie everything, even when he didn’t want them to. As Richie stared into those deep windows to the soul he couldn’t help but let a small smile slip. 

“Well, I love you anyway.” Richie said, voice hoarse with emotion.

It is a simple statement, uttered a thousand times over by thousands of different people. Its meaning is sometimes stretched and manipulated and abused. But in this memory, in this instance, the weight of the words overwhelmed them both with beauty. The feeling that plants itself in their chests is one of devotion and unparalleled fondness. True love. 

Eddie’s jaw went slack, his mouth falling open into an expression of bewilderment. Almost like he couldn’t believe Richie’s words to be true. 

“No matter what your mother did to you, no matter what you you think about yourself, no matter when you act like you hate my guts.” Richie let his small smile grow into an adoring grin. 

“I am  _ always _ going to love you, Spaghetti Head.”

Despite Eddie’s reign of judgement and rejection, despite Richie’s uncaring and aloof nature, only the deepest of loves had bloomed between them. The foundation of it is pure.

“It isn’t fair what your mother did to you. Life really isn’t fair sometimes. But that doesn’t mean that you are unworthy of love, Eds. You are the most loveable little shit I know.” This makes Eddie sputter a little laugh through his tears. “And you’re stuck with me.” 

Eddie catapults himself off of his seat on the log and crashes his body into Richie’s. Their chests collide and Richie falls flat on his back in the dirt. Richie is laughing giddily and Eddie is forcing small giggles in between his sniffling. 

When Richie looks back up at Eddie, the sun shines behind him in a yellow halo and Eddie looks as ethereal as a man can with dirt smeared all over his face and coating the snot coming from his nose. 

Eddie kisses Richie’s cheek and lays his head on top of his chest. 

“I love you too, Rich. Even when you erase your memory and make us go on a wild goose chase through my adolescence.”

“Looks like we can love each other through everything then, huh?” Richie teases. Richie means well but the joke comes out splintered with sharp edges. They both know their time together has an expiration.

They are going to be found again. And soon, everything this is, everything they have, everything they just uttered, will be gone. Poof. Into nothing.

“You know you’re going to lose me.” Richie whispers. “Like I lost you.”

“Yeah.” Eddie whispers back. His voice is already shrouded in sadness from his previous cry, but now it also holds an air of loss. “I know.”

“We can still enjoy all of this, though, right?” Richie’s tone is lighter than before, although a little forced. “We can still be together, enjoy the scenery, relive our memories.”

“Until it all goes away.” Eddie says darkly.

“Until it all goes away.” Richie quietly agrees. He has a soft expression. His lips don’t have the energy to put on a smile, Eddie notices. 

_ Is this acceptance?  _ Richie wonders. He doesn’t think so. Richie wants to fight, and kick, and scream his lungs out. He wants to cry and bellow at God and ask why, why did things have to be this way, why did he have to suffer through this, of all things? Why?

No, this is compliance. If he is going to go unwillingly, he at least wants to enjoy the last few seconds he has with Eddie. One last time.

“You have to promise me something, Eds.” Richie sits up a little bit, leaning on his elbows so he can look Eddie in the eyes while the other boy continues to lay on his chest. 

“Whatever you want.” Eddie vows.

“I need you to move on.” 

Eddie immediately moves away and pushes off of him, making Richie slip and fall back into the grass. Richie looks up at him with wide eyes, his glasses magnifying them and exposing their true bewilderment.

“Move on? Richie, move on?!” Eddie stands up, his knees padded with dirt and grass stains. 

“For us to move on, I need you to be strong.” Richie would laugh at himself in any other circumstance; he sounded like a wizard trying to give sage advice. A magical traveler with the answers to the universe. He didn’t have either of those things. He only had this. 

“Be strong, Eddie. We can survive this.”

“We barely survived each other!” 

“But we survived that, too.”

“Barely.” He is just being difficult on purpose, now.

“Eddie, baby. Just promise me.”

Silence.

“Eds-”

“I just-” Eddie cuts him off softly. Any bite that he used to have in his tone has vanished. Eddie has surrendered. 

“I just… I’m going to miss you, Rich.” His voice is watery with desperation.

“I’m going to miss you, too, Spaghetti.” But it is Richie’s turn to cry. 

He sits up off of the ground and leans his arms on his bent knees. Tears cloud his vision and fall onto the inside frames of his glasses, blinding him. The world looks like nothing but a whirlpool of soggy shapes. All he can see clearly are the colors of Eddie’s clothes. 

“You have to promise.” Richie says in between the soft sobs.

Eddie leans back down on to his knees and wraps his frail arms around Richie’s broad frame. They sit like that for a moment. Eddie just caressing the man he loves. Their heads pressed together. Richie shakes beneath him and Eddie holds his breath so he can hear the small hitches in Richie’s cries. Eddie even wishes he could even keep the memory of Richie’s suffering. This is the man he will lose. 

“I promise.” Eddie whispers. 

 

_ Delete _

 

It takes nearly an hour to get Eddie back on the track on the Erasure. Bill has been working tirelessly, and he can’t seem to understand why Eddie won’t follow the depletion process.

“Ben, I haven’t been able to find  _ any _ patterns. I thought he was going back to memories of his late mother… But that isn’t it. He is bouncing through memories in his childhood but none of them are linear.” As Bill talks, Ben is taking thorough notes. 

“He seems like some sort of anomaly.” Beverly says, breaking their concentration. She has been pacing back and forth across the living room, trying her best to remain silent as both men worked. She couldn’t help but feel anxious that it was her presence tonight at fault that the Erasure was going terribly, and was honestly relieved to hear that it wasn’t. 

“He is.” Bill agrees. Sighing and pinching the bridge of his nose, he spares a look over at Ben. It is nearly 6 in the morning and they only have two more hours to complete the procedure before Eddie’s medication will wane away. It looks like another sleepless night for Dr. Denbrough.

“Ben, you should go home. Get some rest. I don’t think I am going to be able to get away from the monitor tonight, so your assistance is no longer needed.”

Ben’s dismissal surprises him and his head shoots up to look at Bill questioningly. 

“Are you sure, Bill? It’s really no problem for me to aid you here for just a couple more hours.” Ben really doesn’t want to go. Not only because he doesn’t want to miss this learning opportunity, but also because he just doesn’t want to leave Bev and Bill alone.

“No, I’m sure. I’ll see you after your weekend, Ben. Have a good night. Er, morning.” And with that, Bill’s words rang with finality. You’re no longer needed, Hanscom, go home. 

Ben bites his tongue and holds in his sigh. Nodding lightly, he begins gathering his things. He tries not to feel hurt when Beverly doesn’t insist that he stay. He also tries not to feel hurt when she doesn’t even glance at him walking out the door. Her eyes are trained on Bill. Always Bill.

It doesn’t take long for Ben to make it outside the apartment complex and begin closing things up into the back of his van. He takes another look up at the building and he can see Bev and Bill talking inside Eddie’s living room window.

He stands and watches for a second, and finally releases that brewing sigh. It heaves out of his diaphragm. Because Bev looks really happy. Like really, really in love. 

_ Love is an infection of the mind, _ Ben thinks, this time with terrible bitterness.

 

Beverly struts over to Bill as soon as the front door closes. She sits herself right next to him, their knees nearly brushing.

“Bill, I just wanted to say so sorry again, I-”

“No, it’s quite alright, Beverly. I know you have a lot of interest becoming a technician, it’s just that…” Bill sighs. “You know that you weren’t allowed to be here tonight. What am I supposed to do, Bev? Suspend you?”

“Please don’t, Bill. I know I fucked up. I wasn’t thinking, I just…” Her excuse falls away half heartedly. 

“You put me in a tough spot, Bev. I’ll let you get away with it this time, but if I ever-” Bill is cut off suddenly by two arms being wrapped around his shoulders.

“Thank you, Bill! Honestly, thank you so, so much! This job means so much to me, you know that, I-”

“Bev, please, you’re welcome, but could you just-”

Beverly doesn’t release her hold, and instead grips both his shoulders. She turns him to face her completely.

“Bill… I… You need to know that I didn’t actually come here tonight to watch the Erasure. Or to see Ben. I honestly… The only reason I came here was so that I could learn a little more about the process and I could eventually… Impress you with my…  _ Knowledge, _ or something, I don’t know.”

Bill watches on, completely straight faced, but in silent horror. He doesn’t stop her, though, from her stream of confessions. His heart strains in his chest as she utters the words he doesn’t want, yet was dying, to hear.

“But the truth is, Bill… I really like you. I feel like such a stupid girl sometimes, but I’m not. I’m smart and I want you to think I’m smart and I want you to… Like me too.” Beverly lets the last few words fall out of her mouth in a gust of air, her breath softly fanning across Bill’s face. He has an expression of surprise dawning on his features.

“Bev, this is inappropriate.” He barely manages not to stutter each word. “I’m married. I’m sorry. You’re such a beautiful girl, anyone would be so lucky to have you-” But just as he rambles, Beverly cuts him off with a searing kiss.

It held so much more fire and passion than any kiss with Ben had created, setting both of their skin on fire and making the apartment feel as though it was a hundred degrees.

Bill gingerly pulls her face away, looking deep into her eyes. He can’t bring himself to form words.

“I love you, Bill. I’ve loved you for a long time.”  She says regretfully, letting soft tears pool in her blue eyes.

“Sweet, sweet Bev… We can’t do this. I…” But just as he loses his train of thought from looking into those crystal clear blue eyes, their lips find each other again. It is intimate and soft as they embrace. 

The demons of their sins haven’t reached them yet. It is a tender moment for both of them. 

 

Just as Ben is finished strapping everything in, he takes one final glance at the window. When he turns around he feels his heart drop down into the soles of his feet. There, light brightly through the window, is the scene of Beverly and Bill’s terrible deed.

The moment he registers what is happening before him, he hears tires squeal as a car powers up the road’s hill. 

Audra is pulling up in her small car, still dressed only in a light pink robe and black slippers. Her hair is in curlers and she has an expression of her face that is a mix between pity and disdain. 

Ben notices her quickly and as she steps out of the car, he is already at both of his friends’ defense. Hanscom to the rescue.

“Mrs. Denbrough! What are you doing here? Dr. Denbrough is upstairs finishing up, he says he’ll probably be out until-” But it is too late. Audra is gazing at the orange-light window, her husband softly holding another woman in a way she hasn’t felt in years. 

Audra hangs her head for a moment before she gives an unsurprised grunt. Walking slowly over to Ben, he gawks at her until she raises her hand and hits Ben across the chest HARD.

“Asshole.” She utters. Sadly, she begins slowly walking over to her car to leave. Shame and abandonment radiate off of her soft and feminine frame, and Ben really does feel like an asshole. 

Just as Audra begins to cross the street, Bill risks a glance out the window over Beverly’s shoulder. Simultaneously, Audra turns one last time, and they make eye contact. He quickly pulls away. 

From Ben’s point of view, no words seemed to be said. All he sees is Bill suddenly running out of the apartment complex doors with Beverly chasing quickly behind him.

As Bill approaches the scene outside, it is Beverly who is first to speak.

“It was all me! Just me, being a stupid fucking girl! I forced him into it like some-some  _ seductress, _ I’m so sorry, please don’t leave him! It means nothing! It means nothing to me!”

Audra just laughs sadly, looking Beverly up and down with misty eyes. She turns to Bill, hate and love battling on her face. 

“You didn’t tell her?” 

Bill just stares, frightened into silence. 

“Didn’t tell me what?” Beverly asks in confusion, eyebrows furrowed and her cheeks red with humiliation. Bill doesn’t reply. Audra turns back to Bev and smiles a nasty sort of smile, one filled with pity and disgust.

“Poor girl. You can fucking have him.” She turns around. “You already did.” 

At this, Audra walks to her car. She starts it and drives off, not sparing the two another glance.

There is silence and Ben doesn’t dare make his presence known. He just leans against the van, still in the same position he was in when Audra hit him.

Bev turns to Bill immediately, her voice weak and confused.

“What? Bill, what does that mean? Bill?’

“Bev…”

“No! Don’t _ Bev _ me! Did we… Did we have an affair?”

Bill swallows a large gulp.

“You… you wanted the procedure done. You asked me for the Erasure. After Audra found out, you wanted to keep your job, you wanted to forget it ever happened… Forget me…”

Bev lets silent tears fall. She is staring through Bill now, disbelieving. He knew, and he kept it from her. Let her walk around like a love sick idiot. This had all already happened before. God, she was such an idiot. Such a fucking  _ idiot. _

“Bev…”

“ _ No! _ No, Bill.” Is all she says before walking away, strutting towards her own car. Ben and Bill are left abandoned on the road. 

She sits in the front seat for a moment, letting herself release little wails and tears just pour down her cheeks. She starts her car eventually, and as she peels out, she begins driving towards the first place that pops into her head: Lunac Inc.

Bill and Ben eventually head back inside. There wasn’t a lot to talk about, but there was a lot to explain. 

 

This is the first time Eddie painted Richie.

Eddie is laying on his stomach on his living room floor. Richie is above him on the couch, completely naked and posed. Richie lays on his side, head turned away from Eddie so that he can see Richie’s profile. A white sheet is draped across the couch and it beautifully contrasts Richie’s dark curls. 

It was almost an hour ago now that Richie had finally agreed to be painted by Eddie. They had created art together a dozen times before, but Eddie just sitting and painting Richie was something intimate and intimidating that neither of them had agreed to do yet- until now. While they bickered for the first twenty minutes, Richie constantly either fidgeting, changing positions, or cracking some stupid remark. Eddie was getting pissed while Richie was revelling in the negative attention. It was only when Eddie was frustrated to near tears, telling Richie to forget about the whole thing, that he finally settled down and held a pose for Eddie to recreate.

Eddie did not consider himself to be the most creative person alive, despite how artistically inclined he knew he was. He was always looking for specific references, colors, poses. He could never quite get the image he was wanting to create out of his head. Because of this setback to his imagination, Eddie always settled with still life or realism.

It was only when Eddie met Richie (of course  _ after  _ he graduated from all of his art studies classes) that true inspiration sparked within him. He wanted to do nothing else besides illustrate each one of Richie’s thousand expressions. Wanted to get the two crooked teeth in his mouth just right. Tried his best to put each freckle right where they belonged. 

Eddie continued to work silently, his eyes occasionally lingering on the side of Richie’s face for far longer than necessary. Richie tried his best to stifle a grin every time he felt Eddie’s gaze on his bare body. Richie loved the attention, being allowed to speak or not, he was getting what he wanted. 

This was also, officially, their first comfortable silence. There was almost always some sort of noise filling their silence, whether it be the record player or Richie’s own mouth, but today was different. Eddie had forgotten to turn on music when he finally got to working on his piece. Once Richie finally got comfortable enough to stay still for a pose, he found that he didn’t have anything clever enough to say to break Eddie’s concentration. 

All that was heard was soft rain drops kissing the glass of the window. It was all so intimate and fragile, this moment. They both didn’t say a word, just trusted the other with helping create this piece of art. Eddie was finished with his painting now, but enjoyed the perfectly still beauty that was Richie’s body. While he was thin, nearly skeletal despite his lean muscle, he had the paleness and grace of a Michelangelo sculpture. All Richie’s angles were sharp and masculine. His pecs were softly outlined by the light from the side table lamp, and his dark hair began at his belly button and thickened around his flaccid cock. 

Something warm stirred in Eddie’s belly as he admired, but it died back down when he finally looked up to Richie’s face and was surprised to see Richie was already looking back at him. His dark eyes bore back into Eddie’s skull and he felt a warm blush spread across his face and chest. 

Richie had noticed that Eddie was done painting and chanced a look at him. What Richie found was a wide-eyed artist, basking in his first ever muse. Richie almost had the decency to feel embarrassed, all exposed and vulnerable in front of Eddie’s hungry eyes, but he didn’t look away from the man’s gaze. Richie gazed right back.

“I’m, uh… I’m finished with it.” Eddie said lamely, finally shying away from Richie’s stare. Here he was, fully clothed and protected, but he still felt completely naked and open under Richie’s powerful eyes. It wasn’t fair. Richie still managed to be dominant and intimidating, despite Eddie knowing just how much of a dork he actually was. Richie was filled with so many layers and Eddie didn’t think he would ever be able to get to the center of him. A mystery of a man that Eddie was destined to forever try to solve. 

“Will you show it to me?” Richie asked, voice slightly hoarse from being unused for the better part of an hour.

Eddie shyly flipped the canvas around so that Richie could see his finished work. Eddie looked up at Richie through his long eyelashes. Richie’s dick twitched at the sight. 

The small canvas was packed full of stippling and delicate lines. Richie’s curls held so much detail you could nearly count each singular strand of hair. Eddie’s attention span was something that Richie always admired, but he had no idea just how much information Eddie’s eyes actually retained. Richie felt his breath leave his lungs and he was stuck there, completely shell shocked and in awe. 

The painting was exceptionally gorgeous, bursting with passion and love for its subject. Even Richie could feel its enormous and impactful message: Eddie thought he was beautiful. The most beautiful man that could be painted, freckles and crooked teeth and acne scars and all. Eddie didn’t think he would ever be able to do him justice. 

“Thank you,” Richie said, and all of a sudden he felt wetness fall on to his cheeks. He didn’t notice that he had not only been shocked into silence, but tears as well. “Thank you, Spaghetti.”

Eddie looked troubled and crawled the foot or two to the couch where Richie sat. He wiped the tears off of Richie’s face and stared at him with an equally hard and tender expression, eyebrows knitted together.

“What is it, Rich? What is making you cry?” He whispered. Eddie had never seen Richie like this.

“I’m just really happy. This is really beautiful. You made me beautiful, somehow.” Richie says through a few cracks in his voice, all joking and tease completely vacant from his inflections. He was very serious. 

“I just tried to recreate what was in front of me, Richie. I didn’t make you up in my head. You’re just that beautiful.” Eddie says, staring up into Richie’s wet eyes. Richie cracks a huge crooked-toothed smile, and it makes one last tear fall from his eyes.

“Wow, Spaghetti Man, you really just made a grown man cry with a painting. That had never happened to me before.” Richie begins, and Eddie finds himself falling in love with this man, totally infatuated, head over heels. That is until Richie finished what he was saying, which makes him groan.

“I guess I’m just that good of a model, amirite?” Richie says, letting an obnoxious cackled escape his mouth as he crawls onto the floor next to Eddie.

They share a kiss. The sound of rain is the only thing that fills the room once again.

_ Delete _

 

“Richie, slow down! You’re going like 90 miles per hour!” Eddie shrieked in delight, both his hands holding his seatbelt while he sits in the passenger side of his car. 

Richie finally got Eddie to let him drive and he was taking full advantage. Richie was a goddamn devil on the road, going obscene ways to get the simplest of places, picking fights and races at stop lights, doing simply anything to put Eddie on edge or get him to crack a smile.

It was always about  _ Eddie, Eddie, Eddie _ nowadays and Richie couldn’t place why. The fact that he had fallen in love with Eddie had graced his mind once or twice but he never gave it anymore thought than that. Because he didn’t want to. He didn’t want to sit up late at night and think about it. 

He just wanted to spend time with his favorite type of pasta and enjoy himself. He deserved it.

More than that, Eddie deserved it. The kid had just graduated college and he was a bundle of intense anxiety and nervousness. All Richie wanted was to heal those anxieties, and any other wounds that Eddie had. 

Richie thought it he would solve it all with a little bit of fun.

“Want to know where we’re going?” Richie grins deviously, showing off his big front teeth.

“Of course I do! I’ve been begging you to give me a hint for like an hour!” Eddie has to nearly yell over the radio. He goes to turn it down, but Richie bats his hand away. 

This isn’t to say that Eddie isn’t a complete wingnut like Richie is, because they are both definitely cut from the same cloth. Completely alike in all of their differences. 

Richie always made a show of being a asshole on the road, but before he would shout out his window at some car in front of them, Eddie would sooner scream out at them. Instead of shrieking in horror like Richie anticipated, Eddie always giggled gleefully whenever they went near 100 mph. Once, they just barely swerved out of the way for a rabbit on the roadside, and they spun out horrifically. 

They didn’t flip over or fly into a ditch, thankfully, but as the car finally spun to a stop, Richie’s heart was pounding and he was terrified of his almost-death. But as soon as he looked over at Eddie with big scared eyes, Eddie just burst into hysterical laughter, tears in his eyes, holding his belly with the force of his bellowing. 

Yeah, Richie was in love. 

Letting the thought float through his head like a thick cloud, Richie finally told Eddie what he wanted to know.

“Drum roll pleeeease!” Richie demands, followed by Eddie’s soft drumming on the dashboard. 

“We’re going to see.... The Pixies!” Richie screamed and Eddie followed the announcment with a shriek.

The Pixies were Richie’s favorite band, and were slowing becoming Eddie’s. Eddie loved them because Richie did; and also because they were completely insane. Eddie was beginning to realize that was an energy he most definitely was craving.

Yeah, Eddie was in love with a lunatic. 

“Are you serious? Holy shit! OH MY GOD, RICHIE!” Eddie screamed over the music, bouncing in his seat. “STEP ON IT!” Eddie went to grab the wheel from Richie’s hands, and Richie just laughed loudly and pushed Eddie back into his seat.

“I’m going as fast as I can.” Richie turns the radio to the cd that was in the car, The Pixies’ album Come on Pilgrim. 

“Not fast enough!”

“Have you ever been to a show, Eds? Besides mine, obviously.”

“Nope.” Eddie said simply, like it wasn’t a big deal.

“What?! Really? Oh, Spaghetti, you are going to love it.” Richie was pretty sure he was going to hate it. Germs, sweat, crowds, drunk people. “Do you know how to rock out?”

“Nope.” Eddie replied with a laugh. “Why do I feel like you just made that up?”

“I did not! No, listen to the music for a second. I’ll teach ya. Really focus on it. The drums, the bass, everything.” 

Richie turned up the song Ed is Dead. It always reminded Richie of Eddie, for obvious reasons.

Eddie closed his eyes, humoring Richie while he nodded. “Hmm… Yes, yes, I see… Its music, Richie, I know how to listen to music.” He smirked over at the driver.

  
_ She got no got no fear of cars _ __  
_ I better kick my strand cruiser _ __  
_ To the friendlier _ __  
_ Ohh, ohh ohh ohh ohh ohh _ _  
_ __ Ed is dead

“No, Eddie, keep moving your head up and down like that.” Richie directed, trying to keep one eye on the road and one on his boy.

Eddie complies with a skeptical look on his face, just nodding his head to the music. It was a quick pace, and Eddie looked expectantly at Richie. 

“Now what do you want me to do?”

“Jut your chin out. Yeah, like that, haha! Pout your lips a little more, really scrunch your face up. Yeah, Spaghetti! Perfect!” Richie was full on laughing now, Eddie’s face was cutely scrunched up in an attempt to look tough and mean. He wasn’t succeeding, he looked more like a cranky kitten.

“You’re headbanging, Ed Spaghed! Look at that, rocking out. You’re going to blow those posers out of the water.”

Eddie kept his expression steadfast, nodding his head along with the music and feeling like a goddamn loon. But with Richie looking at him and laughing like that, Eddie knew he would do anything for him. 

“Eddie Kaspbrak, the one true punk rocker. You look so cool.” Richie gushed.

After that, they both headbanged and threw their limbs around the car like crazy idiots batting away bees, and Eddie couldn’t remember the last time he had this much fun.

They were really in love.

_ Ed is Dead _

_ Ed is, oh Ed is, _

_ Ed is Dead _

 

_ Delete _

 

Beverly walked into Lunac, its doors heavy and weighed against her weakened body. All of the lights had been turned off for the night, but she knew where she was going. Using the flashlight on her phone, she made a beeline for Bill’s office. Unlocking the door with a spare key, she walks in quickly. As she gets deeper and deeper into his large office, she feels her steps becoming slower and slower. Uncertain. Was she really going to go through with this?

Her breathing was shallow from anxiety as she sat in Bill’s chair. She began opening and closing drawers, trying to find even a hint of what she was looking for. As she investigated, Bill’s familiar scent began to fill her nose. She had to pause multiple times in her rummaging just to take a few deep breaths and keep her tears at bay. 

It was painful, what he did to her. She never in her life would of expected this to happen to her. She felt so completely abandoned, betrayed. She never knew that forgetting could hurt so, so bad. 

It didn’t matter how much time had passed, or if they were to erase her memories completely, those feelings for Bill still remained. The procedure they were doing to people was flawed, so fucking flawed. You can get rid of the memories but you will never be able to get rid of those emotions. 

You never really forget the one you love. 

Just as she was about to give up, Beverly found her buried treasure. It was a file folder, stacked neatly and deep inside of the bottom drawers of the desk. It was simply labeled “Beverly”.

She ripped it open, finding the confession tape she knew all people going through the procedure must do, and popped it into the cassette player just to the left on the desktop. With a shaking hand, she hit play. 

“My name is Beverly Marsh. I am here to erase… God, Billy do I really have to say it?” Her own voice already sounded incredibly choked up and pained. You could hear something faint being said in Bill’s voice, and then silence. After a few moments, Past Beverly breathes a heavy sigh.

“I just want you to be happy, Bill. If this will make you happy, and makes everything go back to normal…” She only lets one sob slip. 

“I’ll erase you.”

Beverly slams her hand on the cassette player, hitting stop and eject before throwing the tape across the room. The cassette smashes against the wall, small fragments and pieces bouncing off of the floor. 

In a flurry, Beverly gathers all of the tapes and files she can. She fills nearly three boxes, gathering up nearly all of the files they have on the property. Her eyes dance across dozens of confidential materials, dozens of names, dozens of memories lost. 

Beverly made up her mind. No one should have these memories taken from them. She knew they each would regret the loss as much as she did.

She wanted to tell people the truth. No more lying, no more confidentiality, no more secrets.

No more Lunac Inc.

 

* * *

 

 

The next memory, Eddie recalls, is the second time he ever saw Richie. It is bittersweet now, looking back. Eddie wishes he would of savored each and every second he ever spent with Richie. The good, the bad, and… Well, times that were like this.

Eddie quickly walks into the Barnes and Noble, looking around for that tall stature and fuzzy afro of curls. He spots Richie, who isn’t hard to miss, and Eddie takes a huge gulp. Hes nervous, hes anxious, hes almost just plain scared. Eddie takes another big breath, before walking up to the tall man. Eddie taps on Richie’s shoulder as Richie stacks books. 

“Hey there.” Eddie squeaks, cheeks already hot with an oncoming blush.

_ Hey there? How fucking lame could you be, Eddie. _

Richie visibly stiffens for a moment, before turning around and facing Eddie with a cocky smirk. His eyes are full of mischief, his smile sarcastic as well as inviting.

“Hey there yourself, Spaghetti.” Richie steps down from his stools, and puts the rest of the books on a cart. 

“To what do I owe the honor of your presence?” Richie kept his tone light but the bite was still there in his words.  _ What are you doing here after last night, Eddie? _

“I just wanted to stop by and… Apologize. You don’t have to talk to me, I know I’m kind of cornering you at work, but. I was afraid that this would be the only way to talk to you.” 

_ I didn’t get your number, so I’m stalking you at work. Jesus. _

“You aren’t cornering me.” Richie turns from him, pushing the cart of books down another isle. 

Eddie hurried up to follow, wringing his hands together in nervousness. He had never done something like this before, but he couldn’t get his night with Richie out of his head. He dreamt about it and he just had to see the mysterious, beautiful, funny… Eddie shook the thoughts out of his head.

“I wanted to tell you I’m sorry. For ditching you. I’m not really good at social stuff and-”

“It’s okay, Eds, no sweat, no sweat.” Richie’s eyes didn’t meet Eddie’s and Eddie could just tell something was definitely not cool between them. He knew he hurt Richie’s feelings, fuck. He messed up. _ Just say your peace and run, Eddie.  _

“I wanted to… Ask you out. To apologize.”

“To  _ apologize? _ I forgive you, so.” Shrug. “No need.” 

“No, no. I actually… want to ask you out because I like you.” Eddie’s admission felt cataclysmic, but his sentence came out faint and nervous. 

“I like you, and I want to take you out.” Eddie says more firmly. Richie finally stops walking and looks down at Eddie, putting a hand on his hip as he gazes.

“Look man, I’m high maintenance. I’m not going to tone myself down or, or stop doing the things I like to do. If you want to be with me, you have to be with  _ me _ . You can’t just run away when things get weird.” Richie’s eyes actually met his this time. They were smouldering, intense. 

Despite his conditions and stern tone, Eddie’s stomach flipped at Richie’s words. Was that a yes? As Eddie goes to open his mouth again, Richie speaks up. 

“Too many guys think I'm a concept, or I complete them, or... I'm gonna make them  _ alive.  _ But I'm just a fucked-up guy who's lookin' for my own peace of mind. Don't assign me yours.” Richie’s dark irises bore into Eddie’s light brown ones. For a moment in time, Eddie was completely grounded and speechless in this Barnes and Noble. Richie’s eyes were poised only on him.

Finally, Eddie cracks a smile. 

“I remember that speech really well.”

Richie flashes a big smile back at him, teeth and all. 

“I had you pegged, didn’t I?” He teases.

“You had the whole human race pegged, Rich.”

  
“Yeah, probably.” He snickers, popping out his hip in a very sassy manner. “Stan included.” He fired some finger guns.

A weighted moment passes between them. This memory was hazier than the others; aged. It was one of the last Eddie had to cling to.

“I still thought you were going to save my life.” Eddie says earnestly. He had never admitted anything quite like this to Richie. Richie, the comedian. Richie, the fool. He never thought that it was something that Richie would want to hear. But here, in the last few moments they had together, Eddie wanted to confess it all.

“Even after that. I knew you were going to.”

Richie gives him a doughy smile, chubby cheeks on full display. 

“I just wish we could give it another go around.” His voice doesn’t raise above a whisper. It hurts him too much. 

Richie brings both of his hands to Eddie’s chest, leaning his forehead on the smaller man’s. 

“Maybe we can.” Richie slowly leans forward, sliding his nose back and forth across Eddie’s slowly. Bunny kisses.

 

_ Delete _

 

_ This is it. This is the end. Well, the beginning. Our beginning. _ Eddie thinks, stunned into silence as the bookstore around him transforms into the  _ The Quarry. _ The sound of laughter fills Eddie’s ears, glass cups clinking together, the faint smell of smoke and the sound of music bringing to life his senses. 

It is the night of his, Stan, and Mike’s graduation from college. While Stan and Mike had future graduation parties planned with their families, Eddie didn’t only  _ not _ have a party planned, but he didn’t have a family to plan it with. So, instead, Stan and Mike kissed him sweetly on the lips and took him for a quick adventure out of town.

Eddie had insisted that they don’t celebrate on his behalf, but Mike especially was not going to hear it. 

“If this celebration isn’t for you, then its for me! Me, your poor, sweet mother, for raising such a beautiful son.” Mike had joked, nudging Eddie’s arm until he cracked a smile.

And so,  _ The Quarry _ it was. It was busy with people, practically buzzing with youth and fun. While Stan and Eddie waited for their drinks, Mike had already gone to say hi to some familiar colleagues. Always the extrovert. 

Grabbing their drinks, they began to head back to the table that Mike was currently entertaining, when Eddie got stuck in his tracks.

On top of the bar’s stage, colored in red and blue lights, was the the most odd looking stranger. He was definitely Eddie’s type, tall with a head full of long long curls. But his beauty wasn’t what caught Eddie’s attention. It was his voice that hooked him in, and his eyes that had Eddie sink into the floor, right there.

The stranger was looking right at him, singing into the microphone and trying his best to keep his eye contact with Eddie. Eddie could feel his face turn scarlet, trying his best to follow Stan as he walked on without him, but he couldn’t.

Eddie walked slowly backwards until his small butt hit the seat of a stool at the bar counter. This made Richie laugh out loud into the microphone, thanking everyone who listened, and after a soft round of applause Richie was heading straight. For. Him.

Eddie quickly looked down at his outfit, smoothing out his jeans and adjusting the pink button up that he had decided to wear that night. Just as he was trying to tuck his too-long hair behind his ears, the stranger finally found him.

Eddie tried to act discreet, despite the blush, and just swirled his drink while looking at the bar counter, but it was no use. As soon as the stranger approached him, he let out a big belled laugh.

“Oh, now that I’m over here you don’t have eyes for me anymore?” The curly haired man said, smile wide and teeth on display. Eddie immediately wiped around in his stool, embarrassed by being caught, and felt a chuckle escape his mouth.

“Maybe you just turned uglier the closer you got.” Eddie shot back, his little eyebrow quirked and a smile hidden. Richie laughs again, just as loud, and it makes Eddie’s tucked away smile come out full force. 

“Oh, I doubt that.” Richie says smartly, taking a seat next to Eddie and yelling an order at the bartender. 

“What’s your name?” Eddie asks.

“Richie. Everybody calls me Trashmouth, though.” 

“Oh, I’m sure they do.” Eddie doesn’t know why, but he isn’t afraid to tease Richie. He isn’t afraid to let his usually subdued nature turn feisty. 

“And what’s your name, sugar?” Richie takes a small sip of his delivered drink, holding Eddie’s gaze in a very alluring way.

“E-Eddie.” 

“Well, Eddie Spaghetti.” Richie holds his hand out as if he is meaning to shake, but as soon as Eddie slides his hand into his Richie grips it and gives it a small, sweet kiss. “It’s nice to meet you.”

Eddie takes back his hand quickly, tucking it into his lap, and curses the God that made him so prone to blushing.

“Don’t call me that, Trashmouth.” Eddie mutters, taking a gulp of his drink. 

“Aw, we’re already calling each other pet names. So, when am I moving in?” Richie asks, nudging Eddie’s shoulder. When Eddie doesn’t immediately reply, Richie leans over the counter to try to make eye contact. 

“Hey, I’m just kidding, Spaghetti. I’m not trying to scare you away.” Richie says easily, knocking his knuckles lightly on Eddie’s head. 

“You’re not scaring me away.” Eddie says softly, finally returning Richie’s gaze.  _ You’re just making me… shy. _

As they talked, Richie had the conversation dancing between serious questions and teasing mentions of soulmates and love at first sight. Eddie takes this all as a joke, but Richie isn’t a liar. He is being an serious as sin, but his seriousness, alas, doesn’t come out so straightforward.

They share some french fries. Richie makes Eddie laugh like a lunatic, the alcohol having nothing to do with it. In turn, Eddie gets Richie right where it hurts, teasing him relentlessly and not missing a beat. He keeps up with Richie’s fast-pass humor with ease. Stan eentually comes over to check on Eddie, but as soon as he sees how much fun he was having with this musical stranger, he let him be.

_ Text me. _ Stan mouths. 

Mike and Stan are having their own fun on the dance floor, Richie’s set having ended and pop music plays loudly over the speakers. Eventually, they drink all of their drinks dry and the dance floor is getting less and less crowded. 

“I should really get going, I haven’t spent any time with me friends and they took me out here-”

“Wait! Wait, would you. Um. Would you want to come over to my place?” Richie asks, nervousness evident but confidence shown through his eyes. 

This makes Eddie’s heart stop. Never, not once in his life, did he ever think he would go home with a dude from a bar for a one night stand. It just wasn’t who he was. He didn’t know Richie, Richie didn’t really know him, and-

“Whoa, whoa! Eds, its okay! We don’t have to do anything if you don’t want to. The bar is just closing and… I wanted to spend more time with you, is all. No dicks included. If you don’t want.” Richie winks. Eddie lets out a breathless laugh.

“I’m not going to fuck you, Richie.” This makes Richie gasp theatrically, throwing an arm over his eyes and pretending to faint.

“Edward, I would  _ never!” _ He shouts like and English woman, accent not too far off from perfect. Eddie squeals with laughter, shoving Richie’s shoulder.

After he kisses both of his best friends goodbye, promising them Richie isn’t a murderer, they set off towards the beach. It isn’t too far from the pub, once they walked a few blocks down you could already hear the waves crashing onto the sandy shore.

It was especially cold out, and Eddie kept himself firmly wrapped up in his own arms, before Richie walked closer and threw his arms around Eddie’s small frame as well.

“What are you doing, Richie?” Eddie laughs.

“I don’t have a jacket to offer you, so I’m giving you the next best thing.”

“A human being?”

“Precisely. Ooh! There it is!” Richie quickly releases his hold on him and begins jumping up and down and clapping like a child. 

Off in the distance, as they walk onto the shoreline, you can see a large and white Victorian beach house. It was incredibly dark on the beach besides the lamp posts from the street. The house looks incredibly large, even at this distance, and Eddie was bewildered. 

_ “That’s _ your house?!” Eddie asks. 

“Our house now, my love.” Richie says dreamily, grabbing Eddie’s hand and breaking into a sprint. “Come on, hurry!” 

Eddie thought about his inhaler for one split second, but it was immediately replaced by the overwhelming sensation of another person’s hand in his own. Richie’s hand was calloused, probably from playing guitar, but still incredibly warm and large. Eddie’s own small hand fit quite nicely inside of it.

They finally got to the porch steps and Eddie had to take a few moments to catch his breath. As he did so, Richie started pacing back and forth across the porch, peering into the windows, cupping his eyes with his hands to do so. 

“Now… If I could figure out a way to get in…” Richie mutters. 

“So this isn’t your house?” Eddie replies flatly.  _ Oh, great, Stan was right. This dude totally is a murderer.  _

“It is for tonight.” Is all Richie says, before promptly turning around, taking off his shoe, and smashing a small hole into the front door’s window.

“Richie! What are you doing!” Eddie shrieks, running up the steps and trying to grab Richie’s own show from his hand. “We could get in so much trouble!”

“Live life on the edge, Spaghetti! Come on, let’s go.” After a few more moments of finagling, Richie finally gets both locks undone and the front door swings wide open in front of them.

“Bingo.” Is all Richie says, before giving Eddie a triumphant smile and walking inside.

Eddie stands on the porch, staring at the front door, and he knows he should leave. He should run back to Mike, admit to Stan he was completely right, and just leave. 

But he can’t get his feet to move backwards. All he wants to do is follow Richie inside, this stranger he has never met, fuck, he would probably follow him anywhere. 

“Spaghetti! Come oooon!”

Without another thought, Eddie quickly sputters and runs inside.

“Richie? Richie! Where are you!” Two hands grab him by the waist, lifting him up into the air.

“Richie, put me down, you bastard!” Eddie kicks his feet in the air for a few seconds before he is finally brought back down to the floor.

“You’re awfully slow, Eds. But check this out.” Richie has a huge smile on his face as he waves a flashlight in front of some mail. “Looks like we are Mr. and Mrs. Evans this evening. Hope you don’t mind, I am kind of feeling my feminine side this evening and would prefer te be Mrs. Ruth Evans.”

Eddie just gapes at him, stunned beyond belief, but Richie loves the attention and continues on with his charade. He walks down the hall, making a quick right, and Eddie follows close behind.

“Now if only we could find a liquor cabinet! I know they must have- AH HA!” Opening up some sliding doors, Richie discovers the wine room.

“Hope you like wine.” Richie jokes, nudging Eddie’s shoulder. 

“Richie, I really don’t think we should-”

“Okay! You go ahead and pick out the wine, and I will go upstairs and find something to slip into that is a little more… Ruth.” Richie winks at Eddie, licking his lips and giving him an award winning smile. With that, Richie runs up the staircase.

“Richie, I really think we should go!” Eddie shouts up the dark stairs.

“So go.” Richie states simply. That hurts Eddie more than he comprehends.

The house begins to shake suddenly, and sand slowly pours into the doorway. 

The memory is falling apart. This memory is fading away. The very last one.

“I did.” Eddie says, looking back up at the stairs. “I left. I thought you were a fucking nut, Rich. But you were… exciting.”

“I wish you had stayed!” Richie’s voice shouts from the top of the stairs.

“I wish I stayed too, Rich. Now I wish I’d stayed. I wish I had done a lot of things.” Ocean water begins to pour into the scene, soaking the house’s carpet.

“I wish I had…” Eddie smiles sadly. “I wish I had stayed.”

“Well I came back downstairs and you were gone.” Richie is walking down the steps now, his voice much closer.

“I walked out. I walked out the door…” Eddie gives a humorless chuckle. 

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I felt like a scared little kid… I felt like I was going out of my head, I don’t know.”

“You were scared?” Richie asks in amusement and bewilderment. He walks up to Eddie, the saddest of smiles on his face. 

“I ran back to the bar, to Stan and Mike. Trying to outrun my humiliation I think.”

“Was it something I said?”

“Yeah. Yeah, you said ‘So go.’ With such disdain, you know?”

“Aw, Eds. I’m sorry.” Richie’s voice was sincere. 

“Its okay.” Eddie says. Then, following the path that he had taken before, Eddie turns around and runs out the front door, bounding down the stairs and running into the beach sand.

“EDDIE!” Richie’s shout stops him. Eddie just turns around, already breathless from his sprint. He stares at Richie, forlorn. “What if… What if you stayed this time?”

“I walked out the door, Rich.”

“Then come back and make up a goodbye with me, at least.” Richie opens his arms wide, asking for a hug. Eddie smiles softly, expression impossibly melancholic. He slowly walks back up to the house. “We can pretend we had one.”

Eddie walked into his embrace, feeling the muscular arms around him one last time. Eddie's head fit perfectly beneath Richie's head, perched just beneath his chin. Richie took a deep breath, inhaling the smell of Eddie's hair. Richie pulls back after that, looking at Eddie's face, trying to burn the image into his mind. Each and every wrinkle, freckle, and pimple. He wanted to keep it all.

“Bye, Eds.” Richie’s grin and teeth were on full display, as always, white in the moonlight. The corners of his mouth wavered, like he was struggling to keep it on his sad face. 

“You never stop smiling, do you Rich?” Eddie asks sadly, his own pained smile gracing his face.

“No. Not when I’m with you.”

“I love you.” Eddie’s voice breaks on the last word. Richie holds him impossibly close.

Before the ocean washes the rest of the house away, before the sand can overtake the building, before their last memory fades, and all is lost, all in blackness, there is only one more thing Eddie hears Richie say.

 

_ “Meet me in Portland.” _

 

_ Delete _

 

 

Bill shuts down the desktop. The morning sunlight shines through Eddie’s living room window. The time reads 7:44 am.

“The procedure is over.” Bill tells Ben. Ben nods, and begins to pack a few of the machines pieces up. 

“Good job, Bill. Is everything erased?”

“I promise, everything is gone.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only the Epilogue after this.  
> Thank you so much for reading even though it has been such a long time! I have been going through a lot lately and didn't have the heart to finish this fic. Luckily, passion for it struck me again. I love my Eddie and Richie and I hope you do too. Thank you for reading!


	7. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it has been so long. Im so glad to be back and finish this piece. Here you are.
> 
> This begins where the Prologue left off. Go ahead and re read that if you need a refresher!
> 
> Richie's Song - True Love Will Find You In The End by Daniel Johnston

_In a flurry, Beverly gathers all of the tapes and files she can. She fills nearly three boxes, gathering up nearly all of the files they have on the property. Her eyes dance across dozens of confidential materials, dozens of names, dozens of memories lost._

 

_Beverly made up her mind. No one should have these memories taken from them. She knew they each would regret the loss as much as she did._

_She wanted to tell people the truth. No more lying, no more confidentiality, no more secrets._

_No more Lunac Inc._

 

**The next day.**

 

“Well, Eddie…” Richie leans in, holding his hand out, waiting for him to help fill in the blank.

“Kaspbrak.”

Richie smiles, loving how Eddie just plays along. “Well, Eddie Kaspbrak, I don’t know about you, but after looking at something as delicious as yourself, I’m getting pretty hungry.”

Eddie bites his bottom lip, hiding how excited he gets by Richie’s daring advances. He couldn’t help but fall for Richie’s flirtations. Not that he was going to let Richie know that.

_This guy is a real piece of work._

After a beat, Richie says earnestly, “We don’t have to stay strangers. Do you want to go grab a bite?”

There is a vulnerable tone that strikes a chord with Eddie. Richie licks his lip when he glances down at Eddie’s mouth.

“Please?”

It sent a warm shiver down Eddie’s spine. Richie was so close that Eddie could smell the hint of cigarette smoke wafting off of him. He couldn’t believe he was being not only flirted with, but asked out to eat. While he knew that others didn’t find him ugly, it was still hard for him to accept.

_Does he really think I'm that attractive?_

Eddie can’t really believe himself when he says, “Uh, yeah… Um, sure.”

A shy smile grows across his face and Richie throws that same toothy grin right back at him.

Placing a hand on Eddie’s shoulder, Richie motions towards the door.

“After you, my love.”

“Hey, don’t call me that.” Eddie says, looking over his shoulder as he walks out the bar door’s. This makes Richie laugh.

“What, it’s our first date! How could I be any more of a gentleman, my sweet?” Richie says the last sentence in a strange version of a British accent.

“Hey, who said this is a date?” Eddie smirks at him, raising his eyebrows. “Someone is moving a little fast.” Richie’s jaw falls open, a smile still radiating his features.

“Oh, really? Fine, okay, then I guess we won’t be getting food then.” Richie raises his chin curtly, speeding up his walking so he’s leading the way.

“What? Then where do you think you are you taking me?” Eddie is extremely amused, smile being restricted on purpose. He wasn’t letting Richie get a laugh that easy.

“I guess we will have to go somewhere as non-romantic as possible. Since, you know. This isn’t a date.” Richie turns around, walking backwards so he can look at Eddie.

Eddie looks down at his feet, shying away from Richie’s staring before forcing his eyes back up. He watches Richie walking backwards in silence, both of their smiles creeping up again.

“You’re a weirdo.”

“That’s what they tell me.”

“Oh, yeah, who? All your weirdo friends?” Eddie finds himself tickled by how much fun it is to tease him. Richie takes each hit with stride, laughing quietly at Eddie’s deflections.

“Nope.”

“What? Your friend just think you’re a comedy wiz, huh? Riot of the century I take it?”

“Nope.”

“What would your friends say then?”

“I guess nothing.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t have any.”

“Oh.” Eddie is struck momentarily by his sincerity. There was something about it that made Eddie sad. It is quiet for a moment, and Richie looks away from him.

It’s hard for Eddie to make friends, too.

“Well, I mean... there is me.” Eddie says quietly. Richie looks back up.

“I could be your friend.” Richie stops walking. Eddie stops his strides right in front of him.

“...Potential-friend. I mean.”  Eddie’s blush rises. This makes Richie’s smile turn soft.

“Is this a friend date? Testing the waters to see if I’m even weirder than you thought before committing?” Richie teases, starting up his backwards-walking again.

“Oh yeah. I definitely need to see how deep this weirdness gets.” Eddie waves his hands around, gesturing to Richie’s entirety.

“YES! I knew it was a date!” Richie says triumphantly, turning around to give a Breakfast Club fist bump into the air. Eddie finally releases the laughter he had been holding back. Richie earned it with that one.

They turn one last corner and are greeted by the winter white beach. As soon as Eddie’s feet hit sand, he is removing his shoes and socks and wiggling his toes. He was never taken to the beach as a kid. His mother thought it was dirty.

He thought it was nice.

He looks over at Richie, who is still walking ahead but has turned around so he isn’t facing Eddie anymore. Eddie observes his beautiful long curls and how they tangle in the beach wind. Something about watching Richie’s lanky body and how his feet are a little duck toed when he walks and the animated bounce in his step. Eddie looks on, quietly absorbing him, and something deep inside himself tries to whisper something. Who is he?... But the air makes Eddie’s face ice cold, his little toes already freezing.

“My toes are freezing!” Eddie yells over the wind. Richie turns around, mischief in his eyes.

“Your toes are cold? I guess we better warm them up!” Richie dives into the sand in front of Eddie, hands grabbing for his feet.

“What are you- AH!” Richie pulls his feet out from under him, making his butt hit hard on the sand.

“Richie, don’t touch me, you fucking weirdo!” Richie just starts laughing, still trying to grab one of Eddie’s feet as he kicks around in the air.

“Richie I’m serious!” Eddie shrieks, smile huge and painful on his cold face. Eddie feels sand under his pants and shirt already from the struggling.

“Goddamn it, Richie, there’s sand- You- ALRIGHT FINE.” Forcing the thoughts of _dirty_ and _bacteria_ from his mind, Eddie grabs a handful of sand and chucks in at Richie’s head. Richie stops moving immediately.

“Big mistake, Eds.” Richie retracts his grabby hands from Eddie’s feet to the sand beside it. “Big mistake!”

Eddie is laughing heartily as he finally turns to escape, but it’s too late, and Richie has dumps two handfuls of sand on top of him.

They both shriek and laugh at each other, the sand fight lasting longer than was probably necessary, until they are both gasping and laying on their backs next to each other. There is something about Richie that makes Eddie feel like a kid. Makes him feel comfortable to be silly, to be goofy, to look like a fool. Richie is just so weird Eddie knows he could never top him. It makes him feel comfortable somehow.

No one has made him feel like that before.

“You covered me in shit, Richie.” Is what Eddie says though, pinching Richie’s side.

“Ah! You mean little crabcake! _You_ started it.”

“YOU started it! I’m freaking COVERED in sand, I barely got anything on you!”

“Let this be a lesson to you!” Richie says in an old wizard Voice. “Never defy your master, apprentice. I will always win the sand fights.”

“You’re an idiot.” Eddie laughs.

“You like it.” Richie points out. Eddie falls silent at that. He fiddles with his coat’s hood strings, Richie’s gaze heavy on the side of his face.

“Hey, Eds (“Don’t call me that.”)… I kind of have another reason for asking you out today. Besides, you know, you being absolutely freaking adorable.” Eddie blushes, pressing his lips together to hid his smile.

“What would that be?” Eddie asks without looking up.

“I may have had ulterior motives.” Eddie raises his eyebrows questioningly. Richie sits up from his lying position, looking over at Eddie. Eddie does the same.

“What is it?”

“You know that song I played at The Quarry?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, I wrote it a long time ago, and I guess I just forgot about it. I was practising last night and when I looked at the piece of paper,” Richie laughs wistfully. “Well, at the bottom, real small…”

Eddie nudges him with his shoulder when he falls quiet. Richie looks up at him seriously, much more serious than Eddie has seen him. It makes Eddie stricken.

“What was it?”

“It was your name.”

They stare at each other.

“What?”

“Your name was at the bottom of the page. Eddie Kaspbrak.” Richie looks down at the sand. Eddie continues to stare at him, eyes a little wider. “Clear as day.” Richie pauses.

“I… Think that song was for you.”

A few seconds of silence washes over them. The ocean wind howls. Eddie is searching, searching hard. _What is it? What does it mean? Why are Richie’s eyes so familiar? Why does he make me feel so strange? So safe?_ Nothing comes up. Nothing comes to the surface. Misfire. Misfire.

Finally, Eddie shrugs.

“Huh. Strange.” Now it is Richie’s turn to look at him strangely.

“Strange? That’s all you have to say?” For Richie, it was cataclysmic that the man he was attracted to revealed himself to be Eddie Kaspbrak. Like a mystery was solved. Anxiety lifted Something simply overcame Richie, and he had to have more of him. Who are you? Who are you? He was magnetized completely.

“I mean, we’ve never met before. I don’t know you. And besides, everything about you is strange, Richie. I wouldn’t expect anything less.” Eddie says, unbothered and cheeky.

They both look at each other. A small smile stays at home on their faces.

Suddenly, there is a vibration coming from Richie’s pocket.

“Sorry,” he says, breaking their eye contact. “I haven’t looked at my phone all day.”

Richie opens up his phone and sees he has five messages. All from Stan.

**7:34 am - Way to leave a note, ass.**

**8:00 am - Where did you go??**

**10:04 am - You fell asleep last night and just disappeared this morning! Why won’t you answer your phone???**

**10:09 am - You better text me.**

And, in a failed attempt at guilt tripping:

**5:47 pm - Mike is worried. Just answer me when you see this, okay?**

Richie quickly opens up his camera, taking a sneak picture of Eddie while he looks down at his own phone. Eddie’s hair is crazy from the wind and face is smeared with sand. Richie loves it.

Going back to Stan’s messages, he attaches the photo and sends it off.

Sent 5:50 pm - Sorry. I have my hands full ;)

He gets an immediate text back.

**5:50 pm - Is that Eddie????!**

This surprises Richie. He didn’t know Stan had a busy social life. Or any social life.

Sent 5:50pm - :O Yeah, you know him??

Just as another buzz comes through, Eddie suddenly stands up beside him.

“Shit!” Eddie shakes sand off of his jacket while he puts it back on. “Richie, I’m sorry, but I have to go.”

This makes Richie frown, quickly pocketing his vibrating phone and touching Eddie’s arm.

“Why, where are you going in such a rush, sugar?” Richie says in a southern-belle accent, but his scrunched eyebrows give away his anxiety.

Eddie starts putting on his shoes and using Richie’s shoulder as something to keep him balanced.

“I’m sorry, if I don’t leave now I am going to miss my train.” Eddie stands up straight. “I have to go home.”

Richie nods quickly at that, looking around at the ground while he stands up, disappointed.

“Okay, yeah. Can I walk you?”

Eddie gifts him with a smile.

“Sure.”

As they reach the train station, Eddie’s suitcase tight in his grip, both of them covered in sand and mud, he can’t shake his disappointment either. He never wanted this day to end.

When he turns, there is something about the taller man’s face that told him Richie was thinking the same thing.

“I gotta go home.”

“Yeah.”

“I guess... I’ll see you around.”

“I think you will.”

“Yeah?” Eddie smirks. “What makes you say that?”

“Well…” Richie stretches, arms raised high above his head before tucking his hands in his pocket. “I don’t want you to get lonely.”

“I won’t.” He will.

“You sure?” Richie’s smile grows into a grin.

“...Yeah?” Eddie gives him a weird look. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Because…” Richie’s hand flies out of his coat pocket, presenting a train ticket in front of Eddie’s face. “We’re taking the same train home, sucka!”

Eddie’s eyes grow comically large. Richie? On my train? Headed home? _On my train?_ Then he smacks Richie’s hand out of the way.

“Why didn’t you tell me you lived in my town?!”

“Minor detail slip.” Richie winks. “I guess I forgot.”

“Or you were just trying to act all creepy and mysterious.” Richie laughs at this. Eddie rolls his eyes, throwing Richie a smile. “Wanna sit with me, weirdo?”

Richie gives him an easy smile back, grabbing Eddie’s wrist and guiding him into the train’s open doors.

“Thought you’d never ask.”

They spent most of the train ride in silence, Eddie’s phone was dead, and Richie had fallen asleep.

As the sun set early and the green trees were whooshing by in the window, Eddie’s eyes couldn’t help but stray over to Richie’s sleeping figure. Eddie noticed how, when asleep, Richie’s mouth looked much smaller. His lips were plump and soft when not stretched out into a large grin. His front teeth sat on his bottom lip. He looked very near like a child.

Without really thinking about it, Eddie spent the rest of his train ride doodling Richie’s sleeping face on a newspaper.

After a few hours of travel and multiple minutes of trying to get Richie to actually wake up, they were in Cumberland.

Eddie offered to drive Richie home, seeing how he didn’t have a car. Walking up to it, Richie rudely pointed and laughed at the poor Honda Civic.

“Daaaamn! What happened to this guy?!” Richie walked over the driver’s side, observing the horrible scrapes and dents all through the left side of the car. Eddie sighed, opening the driver’s side door.

“God, I don’t fucking know. I think it was a hit and run or something.” Richie hopped into the passenger.

“Whoever wrecked your car is a real dick.”

“Yeah, a real Richard.” Eddie snickered.

“Hey!” Richie tassels his hair. “You little shit.”

After a few minutes they arrived at Richie’s place. Eddie put the car in park and Richie quickly opened the door and hopped out. For a moment, Eddie thought that he was leaving simply without saying goodbye. Instead, Richie whipped around, his breathe visible from the cold.

“Wanna come inside?”

“What?”

“Wanna come inside? Like, you know. My house?” Richie eyes were glimmering with excitement. Almost devilish mischief.

“Yeah, I don’t think so…” Eddie starts.

“Aw, why, Eds?”

“Nothing, I just..”

“You don’t want to hang out?” Richie juts out a pouty lip. “It’ll be fuuuun.” There is something about his words that is plainly innuendo.

“I’ll come inside… But I’m not gonna fuck you, Richie.” Eddie sighs, amusement written all over  his face. Richie’s jaw falls slack, but only for a second.

“Shoot.” Richie laughs, snapping his fingers. “Alright, Eddie Spaghetti.” Richie’s voice was deep, and something about the odd nickname strikes a chord with Eddie. His heart does a flip.

Richie rests his hands on the roof of Eddie’s car as he leans in. He gives Eddie a look, eyes dark.

“A guy can dream.”

The air grows thick around them, and Eddie has to look down at his steering wheel and clear his throat, trying not to act as interested as he really is.

“I.. I won’t fuck you. But I will have a drink.” Eddie says lightly, smiling at Richie nervously.

Richie gives him the largest grin Eddie has yet to see, teeth on display and eyes scrunched up.

“After you, my love.”

The walk to Richie’s house was short and Eddie found himself silently sitting on Richie’s couch as he heard the other man clattering in the kitchen, making them some mixed drinks.

As Eddie sat there in the dimly lit room, he began to grow antsy. Knees bobbing up and down, hands fiddling with the buttons on his shirt. He looks around slowly, trying to ground himself despite his anxiety.

Richie’s apartment was small and old, but incredibly homey. He has guitars propped up in corners, synthesizer on the table, vinyls thrown about the floor. Eddie smiles at the mess. The home feels lived in and warm, unlike his own apartment. Something in Eddie yearns.

Music sheets are also spread across the coffee table. When Eddie sits up to look at them- something catches his eye. A paper titled Last Goodbye. It was mostly scribbles, violent scratches imprinting the texture of the paper, but had some easily read words as well. Eddie recognizes that it is Richie’s song from The Quarry.

And there it is.

In tiny, calm writing, Richie’s handwriting, there is a single name written on the last line of the page.

Eddie Kaspbrak.

Seeing it now, in plain sight, real and tangible right in front of him, Eddie begins to breathe hard. He didn’t quite understand it. Richie said that he must have wrote the song a while ago, and yet here it is. And here he is, too.

Something hits Eddie in that moment and his breathing becomes more labored. What was going on? All of a sudden Eddie’s entire day rapidly flashes through his mind and he feels dizzy. The entire day had been absolutely insane, from his compulsion to skip work all the way to meeting Richie in the bar, and now here he is, only hours later, drinking in this stranger’s living room.

Eddie doesn’t do that. Eddie doesn’t do this. He doesn’t understand why he isn’t acting like himself and it only strengthens his panic. He is feeling distant from himself, like he doesn’t know who he has become, and yet the only thing that has been making sense is the one thing that doesn’t make sense at all.

Being with Richie.

Just as he is about to lift the paper to his face, Richie calls from the kitchen. It makes Eddie jump, it has been almost entirely silent besides the radio coming from the tv.

“You doing good in there, Eddie Spaghetti?” Richie struts in barefoot, looking relaxed in just his t-shirt and jeans. He is holding two cups in his hands and has an inviting smile on his face.

Eddie goes to open his mouth, but finds that he can’t seem to get any out. Is he having a asthma attack? ( _Panic attack,_ Eddie corrects himself.) Right _now?_ Richie immediately notices and sets the cups down quickly.

“Hey, you okay? Are you having trouble breathing?” Richie’s voice is a little panicked, hands coming up to touch Eddie’s shoulder, but he just lets it hover in the air.

Eddie just nods his head, hand flat on his chest, gasping quietly. He feels a blush rise from his embarrassment but he’s too worried about his breathing to be worried about his blush.

“Asthma…” Is all Eddie can rasp out. He knows its a lie, that his asthma is psychosomatic, but he felt his self consciousness ease as soon as Richie nods his head understandingly.

“Okay, hey, don’t worry. I’ll be right back.” Richie quickly runs to what Eddie is sure is his bathroom and comes to sit back on the couch swiftly.

In his hand he holds a small inhaler, clean and looking brand new. Richie offers it to Eddie and he takes it immediately. After a few good puffs he is feeling much, much better. He can also feel Richie’s worried eyes on the side of his face, so he quickly puts an anxious smile on, trying to act relaxed.

“I guess I’m lucky you have asthma too.” Eddie says, voice a little hoarse from his fit.

“Oh, I don’t have asthma.” Richie says with a relieved laugh.

“Then why do you have this?” Eddie questions.

“Don’t know.” Richie simply shrugs. “I forgot I even had it stuffed in that drawer until just now.”

Eddie just nods, but Richie having a perfectly new inhaler of Eddie’s exact brand doesn’t sit well with him at all. He puts it in his pants pocket and takes one of the drinks off of Richie’s coffee table, taking a quick swig. He prays it calms his nerves, because if he thought Richie was strange before, he can tell he is only going to get a lot stranger.

“Aha, drink up, laddy!” Richie says in a spot on Irish accent, taking his own cup off the table. There is an awkward silence for a moment, Eddie visibly stiff where he is sitting while Richie drinks half of his cup in one gulp.

“So…” Richie says. “What do you do for fun?” The air between them had grown strangely serious, and Eddie can’t seem to make himself ease up enough to soften the mood.

“Um… Nothing.” Eddie says lamely.

“Nothing?” Richie scoffs. “What’s that big suitcase you got for?” His tone is light.

“I mean my life isn’t that… interesting.” Eddie licks his lips. “I go to work, I come home... That’s it. I don’t know what to say really.”

Richie nods politely, oddly attentive. Eddie tentatively continues.

“I mean, you should see my sketchbook. I mean, for the last two years it’s just been… Blank.” He finishes sadly. Blank.

Richie leans in towards Eddie, scooching into a more intimate position, legs open and head tilted towards the smaller man.

“Really? Does that make you, like, sad? Or anxious?” Richie says bluntly. Eddie just looks at him in surprise, but Richie continues on. “I mean, I’m always anxious I’m not living my life to the fullest, you know? Taking every opportunity, making sure I don’t waste any of the time I still have.” Richie nods.

“I think about that.” Eddie says. This makes Richie smile.

“Yeah? Well hey, you still have time!” Richie says, quite optimistically. And it actually works, Eddie feels a small smile lift on to his face, his furrowed eyebrows untightening on his forehead.

“I do, huh?” Eddie smiles even wider to himself, looking down at his cup. “I still have time.” Eddie directs the grin towards Richie. His pupils eat up Richie’s face, his smell, his figure. _You might be the one to save me, Rich._

Richie is taken aback by the loving and desiring look Eddie gives him.

“Hey…” Richie says, a little hushed. “You’re really nice.” He means it earnestly. When Eddie lets himself look into Richie’s eyes there is nothing there but wetness and sincerity.

“You know, I’m gonna marry you. I know it.” Richie nods and whispers to him.

This makes Eddie lift his eyebrows, looking away from Richie for a second. His heart flutters and he feels ridiculous.

“Um… Okay…” Eddie utters.

Richie takes this opportunity to erase any space between them and wrap his arm around Eddie’s small shoulders, tucking him into his side as he talks. Eddie can feel his breathe on his neck, warm and smelling faintly of fruit from their drink. He feels goosebumps rise on his arms.

“Hey…” Richie’s voice is soft and inviting. “You should come up to the Charles with me sometime. The whole lake gets frozen this time of year.”

“Isn’t that, like, really dangerous?” Eddie says, voice back to normal despite a slight quiver. He finds himself leaning into Richie’s chest, letting his warmth envelop him after his cold day.

“Exactly.” Richie takes a risk and uses his other arm to take Eddie’s hand, fiddling with his fingers. “I could… Pack a picnic. A night picnic. Because night picnics are different. They’re way more fun…”

Both of their heads are extremely close to each other now, forehead nearly brushing, and Eddie can tell his breathing is starting to deepen again.

“Um… That sounds good.” Eddie says wistfully, breathe fanning across Richie’s open lips.

Just as their lips are about to brush, barely there, barely touching at all, Eddie pulls back.

“I should, um. I should go.” He lightly moves himself away from Richie, nearly off of the couch itself. “Right now. I should go.”

“You should stay.” Richie says, smile still easy on his face despite Eddie pulling away.

“No, no, I um…” Eddie’s head is fuzzy with intimacy and slight arousal. “I need to go. I work early, I-”

“I want you to call me.” Richie says, plucking a music sheet off of his table and ripping a corner of the paper.

“Would you do that? Call me? I’d really like that.” Richie says confidently, smiling up at Eddie as he puts on his coat.

“Yes.” Eddie says, taking the piece of paper now with Richie’s phone number. He heads straight for the door, setting down his cup on a nearby table. He opens Richie’s front door and turns around, looking at Richie on the couch. He smiles at him anxiously.

Richie just sits there, orange lights from his lamps illuminating his face lightly. He looked so warm and inviting, Eddie just wanted to run back inside and be swept away by whatever Richie’s plans with him were.

But his anxiety wasn’t going to let him. He shuts the door behind him.

Just as Eddie is about to reach his car, he hears Richie open one of the windows on his top floor.

“Hey! Spaghetti!” Eddie turns around swiftly, a chuckle escaping his mouth.

“Tell me Happy Valentine’s Day when you call!” Richie fires some finger guns and a little wink.

Eddie just grins widely as he stares at Richie and walks back to his car, the grin staying there all the way home, all the way up his apartment stairs, while he is unlocking his door, and he immediately walks over to his couch and pulls out his phone.

He only hears one ring before there is an answer.

“Hey, what took you so long?” Richie flirts.

“I just got through the door.” Eddie admits. Richie tsks.

“Mhmm. Do you miss me, Eds?”

“Um, oddly enough, I do.” He reveals, his teeth all showing and glad. This makes Richie laugh with glee, almost a squeal.

“Aha! You said I do! That means we’re married!”

Eddie laughs into the phone.

“I guess so.” He says sweetly.

“Tomorrow night? Picnic on ice?”

“Yes.”

* * *

 

It took two and a half hours and a few bathroom breaks before they had reached the Charles that Friday. It was pitch black out, it had to be midnight already, and they were walking quietly from their car into some thin woods.

“Are we almost there?” Eddie said, his nervousness evident in his voice. Richie laughs, throwing both of his arms into the air and stretching.

“Yes, my sweet Spaghetti. And there is nothing to fear!” Richie bellows in front of him, his voice echoing off the trees as he leads the way.

“Don’t call me that…” Eddie mutters with a sour tone. This makes Richie turn around and look at him, a sweet sort of look, and Richie shoots him a crooked smile.

“Hey, come here.” Richie gestures lightly, leaving  his hand outstretched and fingers spread in invitation.

Eddie grumpily walks up to him, mumbling something under his breath before taking Richie’s hand. Richie gives his gloved fingers a little squeeze and they are walking again, the only sound between them being crunching snow and snapping twigs.

Then, suddenly, it appears. Big and blue and glowing, the only lights all around them are the far off headlights of cars on the highway in the distance.

“It’s beautiful.” Eddie breathes. The frozen lake was blue and large and wide, spanning everywhere the eyes could see.

“Isn’t it?” Richie breathes. Then, after a brief pause, Richie is tugging on his arm. “Alright, come on, come on.” Eddie quickly resists.

“Um, isn’t this a little dangerous?” Eddie says, his voice a little high.

“I promise it’s really solid this time of year.” Richie says. Eddie isn’t convinced.

“I don’t know…”

“Hey, you’re gonna be okay. I’m here to protect you!” Richie bellows again, this time in a beefy Superman voice. Then, when Eddie doesn’t take a step. “Hey, you’re okay. Look, I’ll show ya.”

Richie releases Eddie’s hand and shuffles out onto the ice. “Ooo, look at me, slippy slippy!”

“Richie, be careful!” Eddie shouts, eyes wide as he watches Richie flail around and try to keep his balance.

“Haha, whoa, WHOA-” Richie falls flat on his ass and back. “Ah, ow, ow…”

“Are you okay?!”

“I think I broke my ass!” Richie laughs in between noises of pain. “See, Spaghetti? Not dangerous.” Eddie laughs out loud, then as he goes to take a step, he stops.

“No way I’m going out there, Richie!” Eddie hollers. Richie quickly gets up off of the ice and stands again, both arms outstretched towards Eddie, like he was asking for a hug.

“Oh, please! Come on, what are you so worried about?”

“Well, I’m glad you asked. Slipping, breaking something, or even worse, slipping and breaking the ICE, or even worse, not slipping and the ice just breaks by it-”

“That will never happen, Eds.”

“What if it does?” Eddie says. Richie is almost to him now.

“Really? What if? Are you really that worried about a what if right now?” Richie says critically, his arms still out and asking for something to hold.

“Um…” Eddie wants to just yell YES, RICHIE and be done with it, but Richie’s hopes are going down and he can already see it on his face the feelings of disappointment. Taking a big gulp, and trying to even his breathing, Eddie takes a step out onto the ice.

“There he is!” Richie yells, finally reaching Eddie, grabbing both of his arms and pulling him in for a hug. “I knew you could do it.” Richie whispers. Eddie feels his face grow hot and doesn’t say anything.

“Okay, Eds, now let’s just scooch on over to out here…” Richie releases his hold and settles with just taking one of Eddie’s hands. They link together automatically. Both of them waddle out a few yards and Richie can’t help but laugh at Eddie’s cute little steps.

“Waddle waddle, oooo, slidey slidey,” Richie keeps saying, and it is the first time Eddie realizes that maybe Richie really doesn’t know how to shut up. Once they stop walking, Eddie releases his hand and socks Richie in the shoulder.

“Ow! My second injury of the night! You better watch yourself, spaghetti monster, or you’re going to be seeing a lawsuit.” Eddie laughs and socks him again.

“Ow, OH, ow!” Richie grips his shoulder, falling to his knees. “You got me again, Edward! I submit!” Richie then rolls onto his back, arms and legs limp. He sticks out his tongue and pretends to be dead. Only after a few moments pass of Eddie watching him lay there with a judgemental look on his face before Richie opens one of his eyes.

“You killed me and you don’t even care?”

“Nope.” Eddie pops the ‘p’.

“Aw, get down here, you little shit.” Richie attacks his legs, making Eddie lose his balance and come tumbling down right next to Richie. Eddie giggles with glee. (“Okay, I think I heard a crack…” “Eds, you didn’t hear a crack.”)

They both lay and stare up at the stars. There are so many, they are so far out into the woods.

Richie slowly reaches out and takes Eddie’s hand again without asking. Eddie feels an easy smile make its way onto his face. The expression feels soft and natural. Eddie wondered how he had gone so long without these smiles before.

“Tell me what constellations you know.” Richie says quietly, trying not to break the feeling of comfort they created.

“I don’t know any.” Eddie says above a whisper.

“Come on, show me the ones you know.” Richie insists, bumping his shoulder.

“Alright, um…” Eddie stares up at the sky, knowing absolutely nothing, seeing only little dots of fire and light and that’s all.

“Okay, um… There.” Richie looks over at where Eddie points up at the sky. “There. That is Osidious.”

“Where?” Richie squints up at the sky.

“There.” Eddie points again, nudging Richie’s shoulder. “See? Its sort of a swoop, then a cross.” Eddie gestures with his hands. “Osidious Infatic.” This makes Richie laugh.

“Are you making that up?”

“No, no, you can see it there.” Eddie says in a nonchalant tone. “Osidious, right there. Just a swoop, then a cross.” Eddie does it again, but doesn’t realize he pointed at a completely different area of the sky.

“You’re so full of shit!” Richie says in between laughter. Eddie just looks back over at him, hand still pointed in the stars as he laughs along with Richie. “Fuck off!” Richie bats his arm out of the air.

“Hey, I told you I didn’t know any!” Eddie says, shrugging. Richie looks over at Eddie then, adoration evident on his face.

“I like you.” He says plainly, before looking away and back up at the sky.

Eddie can’t bring himself to say it. But he thinks it.

_I like you too, Richie._

They stayed and talked for hours, then when they got cold they talked in the car for hours, and when they got too cold for that, they talked on the warm ride home for hours. The sun was just coming up when Eddie finally reached Richie’s house, and the taller man had fallen asleep in the passenger seat. Eddie made a bookmark in his brain: _Richie falls asleep on train and car rides._

There was something about that that just tugged at Eddie’s heartstrings.

Not just that either, no. Richie and Eddie had gotten talking about what they were like as teenagers, Eddie going on about how he was afraid of sex mostly because of these horrible brochures his mom had found for him when she got the idea he might be gay. Richie admitted he hadn’t had sex with a man until only a few years ago. It was girl city up until his adulthood, and he quotes, “I don’t think I could ever go back to the poor broads.” This made Eddie laugh but when Richie followed with, “I feel bad. For taking myself away from the ladies.” It only made Eddie laugh harder. Yeah, that pulled at his heartstrings too.

As Eddie puts the car into park, he turns to Richie and allows himself to just look. The sun was rising a pink tone through the windows and shone on Richie’s freckled face. His eyebrows were furrowed together as if he was thinking real hard, and a small snore kept rumbling out of his nose. Eddie wanted to reach out, caress his cheek or pet one of his thick eyebrows.

Eddie decided on using one of his fingers to rub from the beginning of Richie’s eyebrows to the tip of his nose, over and over again, until Richie finally stirred.

“Hey, sleepyhead.” Eddie whispered. Richie smiled dozily at him and stretched his arms, his back cracking a few times lightly. “We’re at your house.”

Richie sits up quickly at that, content smiling falling off of his face as he realizes he is being dropped off. After a few moments, Richie takes the plunge.

“Could I, um… Could I come back to your place? With you?” Richie smiles sheepishly. He has sleep mark indented on his face from the carseat, his hair real poofy in the back.

First gut reaction for Eddie was to say no, say “richie im not gonna fuck you” again, but the thing was.

Why not?

“Sure.” Eddie says, looking at Richie’s sleepy eyes and too-long hair, giving Richie the cutest smile yet. Richie’s stomach did a flip.

“Okay! Let me go get my toothbrush!” Richie immediately went in and gave Eddie a big kiss on the cheek with a “smack!” and then rushed out of the car. Eddie just laughed, wiping his cheek with his shoulder.

 _I like you too, Richie_ just played in his mind over and over.

When Richie got back he had a small bag, his jacket, and a hand full of mail. Richie begins tearing the first envelope open.

“Um…” Eddie begins, feeling more nervous than he has been with Richie all night. “I wanted to say I had a really nice time last night.”

Richie looks over at him with a smile, but he isn’t happy yet.

“Only nice?” He says lightly.

“Well…” Eddie smiles despite himself. “Okay, I had the best fucking night of my entire fucking life!” Eddie laughs. Richie laughs too, then gives out a crow, just a big happy yell, and grins back over at Eddie.

“That’s exactly what I want to fucking hear!” Richie smiles down at his bank statements, until finally opening the last larger piece of mail.

He reads for a moment, Eddie drives, until Richie pats him on the shoulder. Eddie looks over and sees an incredibly dark look on Richie’s face, one mixed with confusion and distaste.

“This is weird.”

“What is it?” Eddie says.

“Listen to this…” Richie starts reading.

“To all the patients of Bill Denbrough. My name is Beverly Marsh. We’ve met, but you don’t remember me. I worked for a company you hired to have part of your memory erased. Lunac Inc.”

Richie pauses for a moment as Eddie looks over at him. They both just stare at each other  before Richie continues.

“I have since decided that this is a horrible procedure to provide for people hurting in psychological ways we should not tamper in. In order to correct this I have decided to send everybody’s tapes and files back to them…” Richie trails off, lifting the clear plastic tape that came along with the package of papers.

He quickly pops it into Eddie’s radio. Richie’s voice filters in through the speakers loud.

_“My name is Richie Tozier. I’m here to erase Eddie Kaspbrak.”_

“What is this?” Eddie asks, staring at Richie with a hard stare.

“I don’t know.” Richie says.

_“He’s boring. Is that enough reason to erase someone?”_

Eddie can hardly keep his eyes on the road, glancing back and forth between the radio and Richie himself.

_“I just keep remembering what I was like before him and what I’m like after him, and he changed me. I feel like I’m always fucking pissy now. I don’t like myself when I’m with him. I just don’t like myself anymore.”_

Eddie’s hand start to shake on the steering wheel.

_“I can hardly stand to look at him sometimes. That pathetic, apologetic smile. Like the wounded puppy shit he does, I don’t know.”_

“What are you doing?” Eddie asks in near horror.

“I’m not doing anything.” Richie says defensively, looking over at Eddie with scared eyes. Richie’s rant continues over the speakers.

“Are you screwing with me?” Eddie asks, a little winded.

“No!” Richie says, horrified.

“You are screwing with me.” Eddie convinces himself.

“Eds, I’m not!”

“You clearly are!” Eddie yells.

“Look, okay, lets just slow down a second and…” As Richie puts his hands up in surrender, because what the fuck is happening, Eddie takes it upon himself to eject the tape.

And open Richie’s car door.

The car is at a complete stop, the birds chirp happily outside, and Richie stares at Eddie disbelievingly.

“Eddie, please, don’t kick me ou-”

“Go.” Eddie says. Richie doesn’t move for a moment.

“Eds, plea-”

“Richie, just go!” He yells, his eyes full of tears as he stares back at Richie’s bewildered expression.

Richie’s desperate eyes slowly turn into cold and guarded ones. He takes a few moments to collect his things, get his papers together, and then he is slamming the car door shut. Eddie watches as he walks back up the block to his house.

Eddie just sits there. Ears ringing, eyes stinging, hands shaking with fear.

What the fuck?

Eddie steps on it, tires squealing before he is set on his course home. His heart is pounding and his head is dizzy, and something inside of his chest keeps trying to be heard but he can’t hear it, he can’t hear it, he can’t hear it.

_Who is he? Who is he? Who is he?_

_I like you too, Richie_

_I don’t have asthma, I forgot I even had one of those in my drawer until just now._

_I like you too, Richie_

_I’m going to marry you. I know it._

_I like you too, Richie_

_Eddie Spaghetti_

_I like you too, Richie_

Misfire. Misfire. Misfire.

Eddie parks his car haphazardly and quickly runs up the stairs into his apartment complex. He doesn’t even remember the walk up the several flights of stairs, or when he got his mail, or when he opened his door, but here he is.

Eddie is sitting on his bed in the living room as he stares at his own large package, simply labeled:

**LUNAC INC**

* * *

 

Beverly is packing her last box of belongings into her car when she hears the familiar slam on a white van.

Ben is slow to approach, going over what he wanted to say again and again in his head, but he knew the moment he would walk up to Beverly that it would all evaporate from his mind immediately. When he was with her, that was all he was. Thinking of Beverly, Beverly, Beverly.

She turns around, a smile that may as well not of been a smile there to greet him.

“Hey.” He says, standing just in front of her. He smiles genuinely.

“Hey.” She sighs, looking down at her hands.

“I’m sorry for last night. I’m sorry I was there to see it, I guess. I know it was none of my business-”

“Did you know?” She asks sternly.

“Did I know… Did I know about you and Bill?” Ben asks disbelievingly.

She just stares at him.

“Bev, no… No! Of course not, I would nev…”

“Okay.” She says, like she believes him. But like it never really mattered to her anyway. She turns back around, stuffing her trunk until it can be shut, and then she closes the door. She turns back around and looks at Ben expectedly.

“I really liked you, Beverly Marsh.”

Her stern look finally fades. Her squared shoulders loosen. She gives him the smallest of smirks.

“I know you did.”

“Is this goodbye? You’re really leaving?”

“I’m really leaving. Ben.” She says the sentence slowly, so that he can absorb it, so slow it sounds like Ben is a second sentence.

“Okay.” He says. You love something, let it go, he supposes. He swallows hard so he doesn’t vomit.

“Okay.” She says. She leans in and gives him a kiss on the cheek.

It felt like fire and ice and an earthquake and a tsunami and the end of the world.

To Beverly it was just a cold goodbye.

* * *

 

Richie stares up at the huge white apartment building. Nothing about it is familiar. It leaves a strange and wiggling worm of a sensation in his stomach. The place he had been so many times for the last two years and he was never. Going to remember it. He only knew how to get here because on the back of one of his songs about Eddie that had been returned in the large white Lunac envelope was what looked like Eddie’s address.

He slowly walked up each staircase, no memories recollecting. He even ran into what must of been one of Eddie’s neighbors.

“Oh, hey Richie! Haven’t seen you in a few weeks.” She says.

“Yeah, yeah, I guess I’ve just been…. My mind has been elsewhere.” He settles with.

It isn’t long until he is finally in front of Eddie’s apartment door. He knows it is Eddie’s because he can see one of his Incredible Hulk collectible stickers has been stuck to the front of Eddie’s door, just above the doorknob.

It is unlocked. Richie slowly opens it and steps inside.

As he enters the apartment, all you can hear is Eddie’s voice talking loudly over the speakers.

“He’s smart, I guess, but not educated. Like, you couldn’t talk to him about books. He’s more of a magazine-reading type of guy… His vocabulary leaves something to be desired.”

Richie followed the voice until he came across another open door. The source of the voice. Richie had noticed as he walked through the home that is was bare. Nothing on the walls, no lamps turned on, no food on the oven. Lonely. Empty.

Blank.

_“To be honest, I was embarrassed in public, he would be yelling and his diction was just…”_

“Hi.” He said through the open door, looking at where Eddie was listening and sitting on the floor.

Eddie jumped and looked over at him.

“Hi.” He whispers.

There is a moment of weighted silence. They just look at each other. They both look like shit.

“Look what I found.” Eddie says, the ghost of a hint of a shadow of a smile lifts his lips. Eddie turns over a painting, a very beautiful and detailed painting.

Of Richie.

It looks like it should of took them both hours.

_“I think that there’s a truly seductive quality about Richie. It’s that his personality promises to take you out of the mundane…”_

Richie walks into the room and gently takes the photo, crouching down next to Eddie.

“You made me look… Skinny.” Richie’s quiet joke falls flat.

_“This giant, burning meteorite that will… Take you to another world, a world where things are exciting…”_

They both sit there, listening, not really looking at each other. Eddie scratches his neck, Richie messes with the end of his shirt.

_“But then you quickly realize that it is all just a false, elaborate ruse.”_

Eddie stands up then, and looks down on Richie sadly.

“I’m…. I’m sorry I yelled at you.”

“It’s okay.” Richie whispers. Past Eddie’s voice feels as though it grows fainter in the background.

“Eddie, listen, I really like you. I hate that I said such mean things about you.”

“Richie, please, let me just turn this off first-”

“Hey.” Richie smiles falsely. “It’s only fair.”  

They just stand there, then. Looking at each other as they let the past come back to haunt them.

_“And the whole thing? With the hair? Its all bullshit.”_

“I really like your hair.” Eddie says earnestly, embarrassed by his voice’s harshness. He liked Richie’s hair long. He did.

“Thank you.”

“I really like your hair.” Eddie insists.

“Thank you.” Richie says again, sadly.

“I do.”

“You…” Eddie scratches his neck again. “You want anything to drink?”

“You got any whiskey?” Richie says bluntly. But with a smile.

Eddie walked into the kitchen as Richie sat down on the couch.

_“I don’t think his sex is very motivated. I mean, I really saw it on our last night together. Like, I wasn’t sexy… It was just… Sad.”_

Richie closes his eyes. Eddie can’t seem to find any booze, most of what he had stocked up being depleted. Huh. Weird.

“Hey, sorry, I thought I had more…” Eddie says as he offers Richie the drink. He takes it thankfully.

_“The only way Richie can get people to like him is if he gets them drunk. Or dangles the possibility of fucking them in front of them.”_

Richie looks down at the ground shamefully, and Eddie only looks on in horror as the seconds pass.

“I think that he is so sad and insecure that eventually he’ll just go around as a homeless alcoholic.”

“I don’t do that.” Richie finally says, like that was the last straw.

“I wouldn’t think that about you.” Eddie says quickly in a somber voice.

“I don’t.” Richie says again.

“I know.”

“It really hurts me that you said that because I don’t do that.” Richie says, his face morphed into an animal of hurt and confusion that Eddie can’t even begin to dissipate.

“I know, I’m so sorry, really, I’m so sorry about all of this.” Eddie says, hands open and vulnerable.

“Listen, I think I’m going to go…” Richie stands, putting down the cup. “I’m going to go home, I’m, I’m a little confused, so…” He heads for the door, Eddie following him behind.

“I don’t really think I should be here.” Richie says to the ground. He walks into the blue hallway before turning around to look at Eddie in the doorway.

“Bye.” Richie says.

_“I really thought I knew him so well.”_

“Bye.” Eddie says, barely a whisper.

“It was nice meeting you and all.” Richie gives him one last one second smile. And then he is walking down the hallway.

_“What a loss to spend so much time with someone. Only to realize later that he is a stranger.”_

Eddie stands in the doorway for a few moments. His own voice encapsules all he hears, his own mind fuzzy and blank like he can’t stand to think or listen to anything else. He looks at the empty space that Richie left in his doorway. He stares and stares.

And then, without his permission, his feet move from underneath him and he is running down the hallway.

“Wait!” Eddie calls, quickly catching up with Richie. Richie slowly turns around, eyebrows furrowed together in thought.

“What?” He says quietly.

“I don’t know. Just wait.” Eddie says weakly.

“What do you want, Eddie?” Richie says louder.

“I don’t know! I want you to wait. Just wait for me.” Richie stares at him. “For just… a little while.”

Richie looks at him with a hard expression. Eddie swallows, looking around nervously, but his eyes finally settle on Richie’s face. Richie’s poor, beautiful, hurt face. Eddie can’t bring himself to take it back. Eddie is going to be selfish. Eddie just wants Richie. That’s all. That’s all he wants.

Nothing makes sense but this.

Finally, Richie’s rough exterior vanished. He releases a breathe he was holding and his eyes immediately begin to mist. He is breathing a little hard, and it is clear he is holding back a cry.

“Okay.” Is all he says.

“R… Really?” Eddie walks up to him slowly, pressing his back into the hallway wall while Richie does the same in front of him. They face each other head on now.

“I’m not a concept, Eddie, I’m just a fucked up guy looking for his own peace of mind.” Richie says easily. “I’m not perfect.”

“I can’t see anything that I don't like about you!” Eddie says, his hands going up in the air for a moment.

“But you will.” Richie points out.

“Right now I can’t.” Eddie says earnestly.

“But you will!” Richie says. “You know, you will. You _will_ think of things. And I’ll get bored with you and feel trapped, because _that’s_ what happens with me!” There is only a beat of silence.

“Okay.” Eddie says politely, like it is that simple. Richie looks at him with wide eyes and his mouth open. “Okay.” Eddie can accept that. He will. That sounds like the easiest thing in the world compared to going another moment with Richie’s stupid grin, without his stupid nicknames, without Richie. At all.

Richie nods.

“Okay.” He agrees.

Eddie cracks the saddest of smiles at him, his own tears coming forth. Richie finally lets himself laugh, staring right back at Eddie identically, and he actually lets his tears fall. Eyes red, lips quivering.

“Okay.” They both say again. “Okay.”

They say the last okay in unison and it makes them laugh, at first very quietly, tears staining their cheeks and falling onto their shoes. But soon, the laughter grows louder, both of them making each other laugh without cause, until finally the tears that they cry are from complete relief and enjoyment, both of their smiles making each other smile and both of their tears making each other cry.

“Okay.”

Eddie leans forward a little, nose brushing Richie's as the taller man does the same. They breathe in each others exhales, rubbing their noses together slowly, ever so slowly. Eddie's head is swimming and he can still faintly hear Richie's sniffling, until finally their lips caress each other. Every line, every curve, matching up into the softest and warmest of kisses. Every nerve in Eddie's body comes alive with familiarity and clarity.

_So that's who you are._

 

* * *

 

 

 

Richie sits up on a stool in The Quarry. Stan and Mike and the rest of his friends were going to be arriving later that night. No one is in the building, but one.

Eddie sits in one of the back booths, like they were seated so long ago, so long ago it feels, so long ago it seems.

“This one is an ode to Spaghetti.” Richie says into the microphone. He hears a faint laugh from Eddie in the room. (“You’re a dork!”)

Richie strums at that, a happy tune.

_True love will find you in the end._

_You’ll find out just who was your friend._

_Don’t be sad, I know you will._

_But don’t give up until._

_True love will find you in the end._

_This is a promise with a catch._

_Only if you’re looking, can it find you._

_Because true love is searching too._

_But can it recognize you, unless you step out into the light the light?_

_Don’t be sad, I know you will._

_So don’t give up until,_

_True love will find you in the end._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's the end! Wow I'm in tears publishing this lmao. This is the first multichapter I have ever finished and I am very proud of myself. This last chapter is the whole reason I started this story in the first place. And here it is.  
> Love ya'll.
> 
> tumblr - @reddieloserz


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